LET US CLEAN UP HEAVILY POLLUTED DAR, TANZANIA

Despite frequent clean-up campaigns by the city’s different but relevant authorities, Dar es Salaam continues to have heavily-polluted environs, which is hazardous all-round.

This is especially the case for humans and most other living things, as well as the environment in general.

In which case, we sought to establish why the heavy, unmitigated pollution continues to be rife in Dar es Salaam, home to a seven million-plus population – the highest metropolitan population across the land.

We say Dar es Salaam is the country’s most important metropolis in ways more than one for good reasons. For starters, it was founded as Bandar-ul-Salaam (Haven of Peace) in 1862 by the Sultan Seyyid Majjid of Zanzibar on the site of what was the Mzizima Village of the time.

Then, in due course of time and events, it became an important trading/business hub early on for the German East Africa Company beginning in 1887 – and the capital of Deutsch OstAfrika (German East Africa) from 1891 to 1916.

Thereafter, Dar es Salaam became the administrative capital of Tanganyika Territory under British rule (1920-1961). For all practical purposes, the metrolis was the country’s administrative capital up to 2016 when it was officially replaced by the centrally-placed Dodoma as the national capital of the United Republic of Tanzania.

But, when all is said and done, Dar es Salaam remains to be the nation’s most important metropolis and administrative region. But then again - and the foregoing positives notwithstanding - the city arguably remains to be the most polluted metropolis in the country.

This is largely based on the facts that the city is not only heavily populated, but also that most if its denizens dwell in unplanned settlements or slums surrounding the central business district (CBD).

Large industries

Furthermore, the metropolis and neighbouring areas are home to several large industries. This is to say nothing of its Indian Ocean coastline, which is seemingly perpetually littered with pollutants from as far as the Middle East and the Far East, brought ashore by global ocean waves that know no bounds.

All these factors are “very good pollutants” (pardon the awkward expression) – each in its own way, daily producing about 4,600 tonnes of solid waste in the city, 79 percent of which remains uncollected, unrecycled, etc., for God knows how long.

Forbes magazine has since 2008 been categorizing Dar es Salaam as “among the most polluted cities in the world...”

What a pity for a metropolis and a country that is otherwise on the right path to a National Vision which envisages a semi-industrialised, upper-middle income economy by Year-2025.

A clean, healthy environment for all is the responsibility of all of us – and, instead of being a pollution-complacent society, we must at all times cooperate on ensuring that the entire country is as free of pollution as it his humanly possible.

We must significantly reduce waste production; vastly improve waste disposal systems – including waste recycling/reprocessing or reuse facilities – as well as spread education countrywide on pollution and how to functionally address it.

Let’s get it done soonest.