Stakeholder Meeting: Replicating the Shaurimoyo pilot in other municipal councils of Zanzibar

A half day stakeholder meeting was jointly organised by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Zanzibar Environmental Management Authority (ZEMA) on 9^th March, 2017 in Hotel Maru Maru, Stonetown, Zanzibar. The objective of the meeting was to discuss the replication of Shaurimoyo decentralised waste management pilot in other municipal councils of Zanzibar.

The meeting was inaugurated by Farhat Mbarouk, Acting Director, Zanzibar Environmental Management Authority. “The main objective of the meeting is to share the success of the pilot project in Shaurimoyo and try to get more community involved in the decentralization of solid waste in order to achieve 100 per cent source segregation, where wet waste can be composted at the source and dry waste is channelized to recyclers and ensure this is replicated across Zanzibar to make it a zero waste island.”, added Mbarouk.

The meeting was attended by 6 municipal councils, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Land, Resources and Environment, Zanzibar Association of Tourism Investors (ZATI) and journalists. All together, 38 participants attended the programme. 

Sessions:

The following sessions were taken during the meeting: 

1. Need for Decentralised Waste Management in Zanzibar: In this session, Swati Singh Sambyal addressed the need for decentralized waste management in Zanzibar. She further added, since tourism is instrumental to Zanzibar’s economy, Zanzibar needs better waste management and decentralized waste management is the solution.
2. Decentralised Waste Management in Shaurimoyo area, Zanzibar: Sonia Devi Henam presented the session on ‘Decentralised Waste Management in Shaurimoyo area, Zanzibar. She discussed about the status of the pilot project, the process of waste management and major impact of the pilot on the livelihoods of informal society.
3. Site visit at Shaurimoyo: The officials were taken to the Shaurimoyo decentralized pilot site to showcase the ongoing work on waste management. Under the pilot, 200 households in Shaurimoyo compulsorily segregate waste into wet, dry and household hazardous waste - treat wet waste at source and the dry recyclables is channelised for recycling. The first batch of compost was produced in December and about 330 kg of compost has been sold @1000/kg/packet till now. The participants interacted with the workers and understood the process, daily collection of segregated waste and how this pilot is beneficial.

Major outcome:

• Zanzibar urban municipal council (ZUMC) has assured that they are willing to replicate the pilot in city centre area by summer time.
• The North West Municipality is keen to adopt a similar system and has funds to construct a processing site for composting and dry waste.
• Municipal officials from Pemba island also showed interest to work with CSE and device a similar plan for the island. 
• Officials from ZATI also expressed to collaborate with CSE to work on the waste management issues concerning hotel sector.