Vandalism of Arua City litter bins raises concern

Arua City authorities have raised concern over increasing cases of vandalism of street litter bins.

The vandalised bins, which were mostly donated by private organisations, are reportedly sold as scrap metal.

The most affected streets are Avenue, Idi Amin road, Transport Road, Duka Lane, and Lemerejua Road.

As a result of the vandalism, garbage is now littered in all the streets of Arua City.

In April, the World Bank Group ranked Arua City the filthiest among 11 cities in Uganda.

Ms Hadijah Ocokoru, a vegetable seller on Idi Amin Road, said: “After eating bananas or anything, I just throw the rubbish on the road because we have nowhere to keep it”.

To help the situation, Miss Tourism Uganda North, Ms Eunice Aleni, through an initiative, Lush Environment Conservation Organisation, is now organising a marathon in Arua City to create awareness about waste management and raise funds to buy new dust bins.

“We have a habit of dumping rubbish anyhow so we thought it would be best if we came up with a policy or education to pass to our people on how best we can preserve our environment rather than making it dirty,” Ms Aleni said.

Funding gap

The Arua City health educator, Mr Godfrey Apangu, said they are facing a waste management crisis.

“We have an element of vandalism by our population, people look at these materials as those they can also earn a livelihood out of, they vandalise them. If you move down one street, you can count not less than 15 that have been destroyed. This is a very big challenge to our waste management sector,” Mr Apangu said.

He also decried the low budgetary allocation to waste management, which he said is less than 5 percent of the city budget. Arua City generates about 150 to 200 tonnes of waste per day, but not all is collected.