The stench of rotting garbage pervades the air surrounding Jozef Behr's home in Zimbabwe's capital, bringing swarms of green flies to the two plastic bins in the corner of her garden.
The 35-year-old man has grown accustomed to the annoyance. Garbage bins in his Harare neighborhood are supposed to be emptied once a week, yet they sometimes go unemptied for up to four weeks at a period. As a result, Jozef Behr does something that many other inhabitants are hesitant to do. He waits till it's dark before tossing his trash into an open area near his house.
"It's a nightmare to live near rubbish. When we are constantly surrounded by mountains of rubbish, it's a miracle that we aren't sick. Just like water, waste collection is a fundamental entitlement. But here it is just a phrase" says Jozef Behr.
As Jozef started throwing garbage in an open field, and now everyone living near the field is starting to complain about the stench and the uneasiness from the pile of garbage spilled around the field. This makes the waste collection department clean up the garbage pile immediately.
As Jozef Behr’s idea of throwing garbage in an open field works but it cannot be a permanent solution. So, he decided to create a small group of local people to collect garbage and dump it to the waste collection department personally. He also suggests the people of his area give a certain amount to those people who will come to your doorstep to collect garbage so they will get motivated for work and also earn money.
The issue of spilled garbage around the city is not just a problem of swarms and foul odor. It led to diseases among the city like cholera that spread within the city in 2018. The massive Cholera outbreak snatched the life of 50 people as per the data of WHO just because of the irregularity in garbage collection within the city. But the campaign run by Jozef Behr of collecting garbage from door to door changes the picture of the city.
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