By Temwa Mhone
It is 8 am on Tuesday at Chitakale Market in Mulanje District, and business is already in full swing.
However, the fresh aroma of pineapple and mangoes is lost to a stench oozing from solid waste piling up behind the Market’s bus depot along the M2 Road.
During the visit, this reporter saw a landfill at the heart of the market dominated by chemical and solid waste that has not been collected for more than six months.
Single-use plastics form most of the heaps of waste piling up at every turn in the market located two-kilometers from Mulanje Boma.
The market’s committee chairperson, Wyson Paipi, says it takes time for the district council to remove waste, forcing them to operate in an unconducive environment.
“The council officials are good at collecting market fees, but need several reminders to collect the waste.”
Paipi says he cannot recall the year the landfill at the centre of the market was removed, levelled, or halved.
“It is now two weeks since they removed the waste at the stage, but it has been years since this landfill has been piling up,” he states.
The situation puts business operators and buyers at risk of contracting waterborne diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, and typhoid.
Paipi says they see no improvement in the near future as the council lacks adequate waste collection, treatment and disposal facilities, a lack of capacity found in nearly all cities and councils in Malawi.
When contacted to comment on the issue, Mulanje District Council trade officer, Robert Zingani, says they are committed to improving waste management in all its markets, including Chitakale.
“Our tractor developed a fault last week, which we have sorted out, and we have resumed garbage collection. We are also going to construct modern toilets because we want to improve sanitation and hygiene in all markets.”
Zingani says the council needs corporate world intervention to improve the waste management system in the district.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Malawi faces challenges related to the poor management of chemicals and waste, putting people’s health at risk while contaminating water bodies and land.
Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, generates waste of over 553 tonnes a day, while Blantyre’s, the second-largest city, generates over 435 tonnes per day.
About 72 percent of this waste finds its way to open dumpsites or are burnt.
The UN agency reports that plastics make up 8.5 percent of items found in the country’s landfills, and the government has little data on the types and volume of chemicals used across sectors, nor their disposal methods.
With Malawi not being a party to the Bamako Convention, a treaty which bans the importation of hazardous waste and ensures environmentally friendly disposal of waste, it will be harder to combat problems associated with waste.
Malawi’s think tank, Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy (Cepa) programme officer, Haswell Mollande says hazardous waste management in Malawi is not only an environmental issue.
But a governance, accountability and social justice concern.
Mollande says despite Malawi having a legal and policy framework governing hazardous waste management, the implementation and systems leave a lot to be desired.
“Malawi is a party to the Basel Convention on hazardous waste, but hazardous and medical waste are still common in our areas.
“Weak enforcement and absence of comprehensive regulations on emerging waste streams such as e-waste are not effective in achieving sustainable waste management solutions to protect public health and the environment,” he concluded.
