By Veronica Aji and Gilla Everdine
At major junctions and streets in the Up station neighbourhood in Bamenda I sub division, Mezam division- North West region of Cameroon, everyone’s attention is captured by the mix of garbage, gathering of flies and odors.
Waste management in Bamenda, chief town of the North West region has been on the lips of local authorities with garbage collection mechanisms established but streets are still unkempt.
The city Mayor Paul Achobong has instituted a waste collection and sorting exercise through the distribution of buckets to some denizens up station. Meanwhile some individuals like Martin Tabifor have opted for recycling through his organization Paradise on Earth. “When you move round station, you find plenty of breakable bottles that are poorly disposed. My team and I have chosen to collect them and transform them into something that is safe for the environment and profitable”
Bottles of soft drinks, hard drinks and medical glass containers are carefully picked from dumpsites every week “Each time I go with my K-truck, I carry more than one thousand bottles. Glass bottles are always available because of the influx of beer parlours Up station. Once at the transformation site at Aningdoh2 quarter, we pack the bottles in different colors and begin the crushing exercise using a locally made machine to get aggregate”
In Bamenda, environmental experts say majority of waste produced is biodegradable and with proper sorting technics, managing waste could be much easier. One of them is Dereck Tantoh chief of brigade at the North West office of Environment and Nature protection”the non-biodegradable waste in their majority is plastics and glass bottles which are from imported drinks. This contributes in degrading the landscape with farmers greatly affected as they complain that crops don’t penetrate the soil properly. For now, plastic bottles are easy to recycle and we believe that if the people separate dirt from their homes and even use the plastic bottles for urban gardening, much would be achieved”
The transformation of plastic waste is being practiced by many in Mezam division like Tanjong Martin, Mayor of Tubah council who uses them to produce road pavement.
For Mr Tabifor, much can be obtained from glass bottles “we crush these bottles and mix with sand and cement which gives us heavy and healthy construction blocks. Size 15 is sold at 450-500frs while size 20 is sold at 600 FRS”
Government and individual efforts are being implemented on the field to arrest poor waste disposal in Bamenda and it is believed that the participation of all could give Bamenda a proper facelift
