MANA. 6/6/2017. Moving around many areas in Lilongwe, one cannot fail to see heaps of uncollected garbage dumped in undesignated areas. Market places and road sides, have likewise, turned into garbage dumping sites, although unauthorized by the civic, township and village leaders. However, nothing is being done to curb the malpractice.
Such garbage is not only an eyesore to residents and passersby, but also a health and environmental hazard, as it produces bad smell close to dwelling places, and is a breeding place for germs.
Some men from impoverished Ntandire area in the city, found a good business in one of the dumping sites.
One of the men, McDonald Chimseu, found gold in garbage.
35-year old Chimseu, and friend, 31-year old Steve Chagona, are producing and selling manure from an unauthorized garbage dumping site at Area 49,Gulliver.
“I am able to make more money now, out of the dumping site, compared to the piece-works I used to do of loading and offloading bricks,” Chimseu told Malawi News Agency (MANA) recently.
He boasted that the minimum he earns in a day’s work is K5,000; while the minimum he used to earn from his previous piece work was only K1,000 per day.
Chimseu confessed that it was not his idea to sell manure out of garbage.
“But one day as I was waiting to go for a trip to collect bricks, a lady came to us with 30 empty bags asked my friend and I if we could fill the bags with manure from the damping site.
I organized three more friends to do the job, and in no time we filled the bags and earned K30,000 – that is how we started,” he proudly told MANA.
The Ntandire resident had his eyes opened and realized that he could make more money by producing manure out of garbage, than being a brick loader.
Chimseu said that he charges K15,000 to fill a one tonner and K40,000 for a 10 tonner.
According to the 31-year-old man, there is easy money in the newly-found business because in the past three months he has been at the dumping site, he and his friends have made more money than in their previous jobs, which they say they no longer do.
Chimseu’s interest is not only to make money, but he feels that his new job will help the City Authorities in clearing garbage to make Malawi’s Capital City clean.
He, however, observed that since he and his friends started working at the dumping site, the volume of fresh garbage has been reducing, as residents of Gulliver only come to the dumpsite either before the “manure makers” arrive or after they have left.
While he appreciates there is cash coming out of the dumpsite, he feels that it is not proper that people in the City throw their garbage anyhow, including at this site, which is along the road to City Centre and close to Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe.
Chimseu urges Gulliver residents not to throw garbage, which includes dead dogs, baby diapers, plastic papers, and rotten foods along roadside.
He said that it will be good if they managed the garbage in their own compounds, to keep the locations and cities clean.