Bulawayo, (New Ziana) – The Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has ruled out plans to regularise the informal settlement at Richmond Landfill, saying most people staying at the site are temporary waste collectors who have homes elsewhere in the city.
In an interview, city director of Health Services, Edwin Sibanda-Mzingwane said the settlement exists because residents there want to be close to the landfill to recyclable materials, and buyers who come, rather than the need to have permanent accommodation.
“There is a settlement around Ngozi Mine or the Richmond Landfill site, which is both informal and illegal. But it is also temporary. It exists as long as there is something being deposited at the landfill.
“We have no intention of regularising the settlement and making it permanent or improving it because we believe it is temporary,” Sibanda-Mzingwan said.
Dr Sibanda-Mzingwane said an estimated 1,500 people were linked to activities at the landfill, with many erecting makeshift shelters during the working week before returning to their homes at weekends.
“Some of the people have houses within the city, but those houses are too far away from the landfill. To make it easier for them to get to the landfill, they put up shacks, collect recyclable valuables from the refuse and sell them from there because buyers come to collect from the site.
“Some go away over the weekends to their proper houses and from Monday to Friday migrate back to their workplace,” he explained.
Sibanda-Mzingwane said the settlement would naturally disappear once the landfill is decommissioned, as the collectors are expected to move to another disposal site where waste is being deposited.
“They were at Hyde Park and I am sure they followed us to Richmond. Wherever we establish the next landfill, they will follow us there,” he said.
Richmond Landfill was commissioned in 1994 and is the city’s 12th refuse-disposal site.
Before then, Bulawayo used several disposal sites, including the area now occupied by Sobukazi School grounds between 1963 and 1970, and later Hyde Park near Pelandaba Cemetery.
New Ziana
