Churches conducting monthly clean-up campaigns in Bulawayo’s city centre say littering resumes within hours of areas being cleaned, and are calling on vendors and the public to take greater responsibility for their surroundings.
The Zimbabwe Council of Churches and other stakeholders clean parts of the city centre on the first Friday of every month, targeting areas along 5th and 6th Avenue. But organisers say the effort is quickly undone.
“As soon as we have finished cleaning, it doesn’t take three hours, people will be throwing litter like plastics and several other things on the pavements,” said Reverend Mbongeni Dube of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches.
Vendors along 6th Avenue have been singled out for failing to participate in the campaigns. Reverend Dube said the churches plan to engage traders ahead of future clean-ups to build awareness before the work begins.
The situation is made more difficult, he added, by hostility from some members of the public. “Sometimes even when we are picking up their litter people will be insulting us, they don’t see the value of what we are doing,” he said.
Reverend Dube said behavioural change was as important as the clean-ups themselves, and urged vendors to see clean surroundings as being in their own interest.
“They should do business in a clean environment, it’s good for them and it’s good for their customers,” he said. “It’s their place, it’s their environment, it’s their garden.”
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