Eloise: Cllean-up in Beira will take 30 days

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Eloise: Cllean-up in Beira will take 30 days

2:50 CAT | 29 Jan 2021

All photos: Courtesy of Beira Municipal Council

Beira Municipal Council, in Sofala, started to clean up its home city only days after cyclone Eloise made landfall, but has conceded that it will take 30 days to remove all the waste.

The municipality is using garbage shredders and more than 20 trucks to tackle the piled-up garbage. Some of the equipment is supplied by private companies and aid partners.

As happened after Cyclone Idai, there are large amounts of garbage on every street in Beira, and the city council has set up work teams in all 26 of the city’s neighbourhoods.

“Idai taught us that, right after a cyclone, there are huge amounts of trash to be removed, so we purchased garbage shredders last year to make the collection process less expensive. What took us 10 trips to do before gets done in one now. In other words, the machines shred garbage and reduce its volume by a factor of 10, and it can be used as fertiliser,” mayor of Beira Daviz Simango explained.

Despite the number of teams involved and the availability of more than a dozen garbage trucks, the municipal council believes that it will take 30 days at least to remove all the waste spread about by the cyclone.

Simango urged Beira residents to help by collecting waste from their backyards and taking it to officially demarcated collection points, so to avoid a perpetual round of rubbish collections.