The Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has blamed its erratic refuse collection services on its ageing compactor trucks fleet which often break down.
The local authority has struggled to collect refuse in most suburbs due to a shortage of operational compactor trucks.
BCC Corporate Communications Manager, Nesisa Mpofu explained that at most the city operates with eight-ten compactor trucks which are not enough.
“The City of Bulawayo currently has fourteen serviceable compactor trucks. However, the trucks are old resulting in frequent breakdowns. At any given time an average of eight to ten trucks will be operational,” Mpofu said.
“The challenges affecting solid waste management are economic in nature and the solution is the acquisition of more vehicles hence it is not easy to predict when the problem is going to end.”
Mpofu said the local authority will contract private truck owners to ease refuse collection in low-density areas as is the case in the high-density areas and CBD.
“Contracting out of refuse removal is being done in phases. At the moment the contracts cover high density areas and the Central Business District (CBD) if need arises. It will be rolled out to the low-density areas in the near future,” she said.
According to the latest council minutes, a total of thirteen breakdowns were reported in January, ensuring that an average of eight refuse compactors were available daily for refuse collections.
The minutes state that refuse compactors were last procured more than five years ago, yet, according to the Transport Policy every year at least one refuse compactor was meant to be procured.
“These were not able to adequately service all areas, particularly shopping centres. Supervisory vehicles remained insufficient as there were ten supervisors sharing three vehicles that frequently broke down,” the minutes read.
“Routine activities such as follow up of refuse collection tasks, enforcement of dog control by-laws and investigation of complaints remained subdued. There was an urgent need to procure additional refuse compactors as the city was growing and so does the amount of illegal activities which bring along increased waste volumes.”
