By Senzeni Ncube
The Bulawayo City Council (BCC) says plans are afoot to set up a US$150 million solid to waste energy plant to generate alternative power for the city.
The local authority has gone into partnership with Pragma Leaf Consulting Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd, to set up the state-of-the-art facility.
In an interview with CITE, BCC Senior Environment Health Officer, Nkanyiso Ndlovu said the city has great potential to converting solid waste into energy.
โThere is a great potential in the City to convert waste into energy. Currently we have signed a contract for a construction of waste dependent facility in the city,โ he said.
Ndlovu said the facility will mean that Bulawayo is able to treat waste from other cities.
โIf we have a waste to energy plant in Bulawayo, it means we could be able to handle waste coming from Victoria Falls, Plumtree and other surrounding towns,โ he said.
โWe hope that by 2023 the facility should be operationalโ.
However, he said the economic performance also had a positive or negative impact on the facility.
โWhen the economy is performing well, people tend to produce more waste and when the economy is not performing well less waste is produced,โ said Ndlovu.
Meanwhile, the health officer said for the city to shift to green energy there is need for policy consistence in the country.
โAs much as we would want to set up a waste to energy plant there is need to look into certain environmental laws that might have a negative impact on the project,โ he said.
The Bulawayo waste-to-energy project was initiated through the support of the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (Comesa) in 2012.
