Local authorities discuss zero waste management

OTJIWARONGO, 18 JUN – A four-day consultative workshop on zero waste management at different local authority councils in the country has commenced at Otjiwarongo on Monday.
Organised by the Otjozondjupa Sustainable Waste Management (Oswam) Forum, it is aimed at discussing the future without waste by means of no dumping, no burning and no burying of trash.
Officially opening the workshop, Deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism, Bernadette Jagger said her ministry, which is responsible for environment protection, is distressed about the bad tendencies and culture of littering emerging among the people.
She said that the inadequate capacities and lack of knowledge by many local authorities in the country to manage the littered waste is also a concern for her ministry.
“Therefore, during your discussions, let us try to analyse how and what our people think about this waste, and how we should change the way they view it,” she advised.
In her presentation, Oswam Forum Executive Director, Lydia Kazapua said the workshop intends to lay down a plan on how to eliminate dumpsites in the country and replace them with factories where jobs could be created.
A study conducted by the forum, she indicated, discovered that all local authority councils in Namibia spend millions in the collection of waste from residential, business centres and to dumpsites.
Kazapua continued that the future now is to start thinking of ‘green’ jobs, and local economic growth to be generated from waste management and sorting the rotten organic waste materials into composite manure and selling it for farming purposes.
The workshop will compile a report on trash mapping activities to be applied by local authority councils countrywide.
A total of 20 local authority councils including Mariental, Usakos, Oshakati, Ondangwa, Witvlei, Kamanjab and Windhoek are attending the event.

NAMPA