Harare — ZANDA Sirinde has lived at 25 Dominic Road, Rimuka, Kadoma, since 1961 while Cathy Gondo of 24 Mahaga Road has clalled the city home since 1998.

"There used to be a small road that passed through the spaces between houses. The lane was always clean but after sometime some residents started dumping waste behind their houses in this alley.

"Efforts by the former Minister of Information Dr Nathan Shamuyarira to have the rubbish dumps removed failed because of a depleted council refuse collection fleet.

"Occasionally, the council would attempt to address this growing problem but with time the people just seemed to accept that these alleys were legitimate rubbish dumps," she sighed.

When Cathy arrived in 1998, the rubbish heaps had grown immensely owing to years of erratic and sometimes non-collection of garbage.

The area where Cathy lives used to have a public toilet, which stopped functioning at the turn of the millennium. Although the toilet was subsequently demolished in 2008, no one bothered to remove the rubble.

For some reason, residents decided that the pile of rubble was an ideal place for another rubbish dump and they started disposing of their household waste right there resulting in the creation of a mound of stone and garbage.

As the refuse dump grew, it encroached into Zanda and Cathy's yards but residents felt that since the site of the original dump was in a public place they could keep on discarding their rubbish there.

Earlier this year, two non-governmental organisations -- Practical Action Group and Oxfam -- identified Rimuka as one of the areas in need of a major clean-up after noticing the effects of the poor rubbish disposal in the area.

Practical Action projects co-ordinator Mr Alexio Mubaiwa said working with the community, especially the unemployed, the two organisations started a sustainable waste management programme.

"We managed to identify residents who were interested in the project and a committee was created where we trained more than 35 residents on how to use the waste they generated in their households for fertilizing their backyard gardens," he said.

The idea of composting and small-scale gardening is benefiting the unemployed and poor in Rimuka.

Rimuka residents are now growing vegetables that are fertilized by the compost from the household waste and they are selling these to supplement their incomes.

Residents are being made aware of the importance of proper waste management strategies through the composting of their refuse to obtain manure.

Proper rubbish storage bins for homes and for public places have been supplied so that the waste does not end up in the alleys like the one in Zanda and Cathy's neighbourhood.

Yard waste makes up 20 to 30 percent of the solid waste generated in most municipalities throughout Zimbabwe, while food waste accounts for another 8 to 9 percent.

The cost of collecting, hauling and handling household refuse often comprises a large portion of the budget set aside for many municipal solid waste management programmes, averaging 20 percent of the budget and increasing to as much as 50 percent when grass clippings and leaves are handled.

Furthermore, the incineration of yard waste is a major source of air pollution.

Although municipal composting is an environmentally preferable alternative for handling yard and food wastes, processing this rubbish at the source reduces the high costs of collecting and has a positive effect on the environment.

And backyard composting is one of the easiest ways to process yard waste at source.

Making compost is a fast way of imitating nature's cycle of life and death. The end product is a dark, loose, partially decomposed, amorphous form of organic matter that reveals no hint of its origin.

Finished compost has many uses in the home garden.

As it is created from a mixture of plant and animal wastes, it contains a broad base of both macro and micro fertilizer nutrients.

Most of these nutrients are bound in an organic form and are made available to plants slowly throughout the growing season.

The relative quantity of any one nutrient found in compost is quite low; thus the major benefit of composite lies in its soil conditioning qualities.

As a rich source of organic matter, it improves the water-holding capacity of sandy soils and their ability to retain nutrients and releasing them to plant roots as needed.

In heavier clay soils, compost binds particles together to form aggregates, improving both water drainage and the ability of plant roots to penetrate the soil.

Conditioning soil surface layers with compost also improves infiltration reducing soil erosion and soil crusting.

As a soil conditioner, compost contributes organic acids that weather mineral portions of the soil, making nutrients more readily available for plant uptake.

Compost also improves the buffering capacity of the soil, helping stabilise its alkalinity levels.

Because earthworms are attracted to organic matter, the earthworm population then increases soil mixing and aeration that are important for plant growth.

Compost is most frequently applied to garden soils just before the rains come and planting begins.

Compost should be liberally applied and turned under to a depth of four to six inches. Gardeners with limited compost should incorporate it only below the seed row. Handfuls of compost also can be incorporated in planting holes for transplants.

Compost makes an excellent top dressing for lawns, trees, shrubs and perennial flowers. Mulches around vegetables and other plants help reduce water evaporation from the soil and cut down on annual weed growth, as well as serving as a slow-release source of nutrients.

Compost also cools the soil and buffer soil water fluctuations.

As of early February this year, all the waste has been cleared from the public spaces in most areas of Rimuka's Ward 2 and Ward 8.

One of the beneficiaries of the project, Ms Caroline Majanisi, said she puts the compost manure into an old sack that is then perforated and the seedlings planted through the openings.

"They help us utilise the small spaces that we have at our yards to grow vegetables to feed our families and also for sale.

"Now that the refuse has been removed we can now fence our homes and make gardens. We hope to share the place where the rubbish and waste heap was to extend our yards as the area is common to both of us," she said.

Zimbabwe is currently experiencing waste management problems and this is one way of sustainable management of municipal waste in urban areas.