Some residents of Matrero North area in Lusaka district have complained about the continued throwing of garbage at Chingwere cemetery by unknown people.
A check by One Love Radio News found piles of uncollected garbage dotted inside and around the final resting place, near the residential areas.
Speaking in an interview with one love radio news one of the residents Catherine Banda attributed the indiscriminate dumping of waste to the Lusaka City Council LCC’s failure to collect the garbage.
Ms. Banda lamented that most residents in the area send young people to dump garbage at the grave yard, especially at night and early in the morning, a situation she says is unfortunate.
“They have nowhere to dump garbage, even if we advise them not to do such, they still go ahead, they mostly come in the evenings around 19 and 20 hours to dump the waste” she said.
Meanwhile, the Lusaka City Council LCC public health director Christopher Mtonga told one love radio news that the challenge is that people in the area and many other areas are not paying for waste collection hence they do not have anyone to collect waste for them.
He said People need the polluter principle which demands that “he who produces waste must pay for its disposal”.
Mr. Mtonga further explained that there are community based enterprises in the areas which are companies legally contracted by the council, to offer the services of solid waste, of which the community needs to subscribe to.
“The challenge is that people always unsubscribe to garbage collection which results to no one collecting garbage, hence them dumping indiscriminately, what they are doing is unfair to the environment and the blame comes to the local authority when its themselves that cause the pollution” he said.
