The Victoria Falls City Council (VFCC) has moved an inch closer to becoming a smart city after completing construction of a low-cost engineered landfill and commencing the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (Wash) project to improve sanitation services and solid waste management.
The local authority last week launched a US$4 million water reservoir project in Mkhosana, as the first phase of the grand US$18 million Wash project that is set to permanently end water problems in the tourism city.
The project scope includes a 5 megalitres ground reservoir, 0.75 megalitres elevated storage tank and associated works in Mkhosana suburb near Moringa shopping centre.
Provision of clean and reliable water services is a key tenet for the tourism city to be a world class tourism destination.
Victoria Falls’ economy is largely anchored on tourism, hence the city’s vision to become Africa’s leading green destination and has since mainstreamed global warming and climate change issues in its master plan.
Victoria Falls — the country’s youngest city — has also installed solar-powered street lights on Livingstone Way in a US$3 million partnership with Satewave Technologies, as one of the strategies towards the green city status.
It has also put zero-emission and climate-neutral activities at the top of its five-year strategic plan that council is still working on and will be aligned to the National Development Strategy (NDS1).
The city is also planning on having pedestrians and electric cars in the new normal in the envisaged zone, and the city could be the first “green city” in the country with less gas emissions in the city centre.
The ambitious plan, follows Sweden’s port city of Gothenburg which has set sights on becoming the world’s first climate-neutral city by 2030.
Ensuring sustainable environmental protection and resilience is one of the seven objectives of NDS1, and Victoria Falls stakeholders formed a waste management taskforce to keep the resort city in its pristine state as part of the green tourism initiative.
The waste management taskforce is part of the Pristine Victoria Falls Society Initiative (PVFSI) which was started in October last year and in line with the National Clean-up exercise.
The Public Service Commission recently said Victoria Falls is one of the best-managed local authorities in the country, with most basic services available to residents despite the challenges facing the country, leveraging public-private partnerships where the local authority works with various stakeholders including tourism sector players, and individual developers.
Recently, Matabeleland North Provincial Affairs and Devolution Minister Richard Moyo visited the city’s dumpsite near Masue River, where the local authority adopted the Fukuoka waste treatment model which meets tourism destination standards.
The council used internal funds and Devolution Funds from Government to construct the dumpsite.
The city Engineer Mrs Sherinah Sibanda initiated Fukuoka waste treatment model from Japan where council sent her through the Japan International Corporate Agency to study solid waste management systems a few years ago.
This makes Victoria Falls one of the few local authorities with environmentally friendly and low-cost solid waste management model in the country.
The idea behind the landfill is to improve solid waste management or waste disposal, which entails how garbage is handled from its source including its collection, transportation, treatment and disposal at the dumpsite.
The landfill has two cells which are 120 metres long and 30 metres wide as well as link roads and a leachate pond measuring 20x20x3 square metres.
The cells were layered with a plastic sheet at the bottom and there is a drainage pipe directing leachate water to the pond while perforated pipes were fitted to release into the air, methane gas generated from the fermented rubbish to prevent veld fires.
Each cell has a four-year lifespan after which it will be compacted and filled with soil before vegetation is planted to make it habitable once again as it will meet environmental regulations, according to the model.
Mrs Sibanda said fires that used to occur each year between September and November at the dumpsite because of random waste disposal are a thing of the past because of the engineered landfill.
She said the methane gas generated at the dumpsite is too little and not extractable for now.
“This is phase 1 and the project comes in three phases. We have worked in terms of EMA standards and put pies to collect methane gas. The cells will have a lifespan of three to four years each,” said Mrs Sibanda.
Matabeleland North Provincial Affairs Minister Richard Moyo said the project is a better strategy that avoids growth of squatter camps created by garbage scavengers who camp at the dumpsite as in the case of Cowdray Park dump site commonly known as Ngozi Mine in Bulawayo.
Senior Victoria Falls citizen Mr Christopher Ndiweni said the engineered landfill was a welcome development as it had worked in preventing veld fires.
The initiative by Victoria Falls is in line with Government’s plans for Zimbabwe to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030, with President Mnangagwa on record saying major emitters should scale up mitigation action and show greater interest in adaptation.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Leonard Ncube
Quelle/Source: Chronicle, 13.06.2023
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