Sewer Veggies on Sale

SOME residents of Lusaka’s Chamba Valley area are growing vegetables using sewer waste from the nearby Kaunda square stabilisation pond to fertilise and water their vegetables.
The vegetables, mainly rape and Chinese cabbage, find themselves in some bonafide shopping out lets within the city while some are sold directly to individual consumers.
A Sunday Times crew which visited the gardens in the area near the Zambia National Service Chamba Valley camp discovered that the residents have been using human waste to fertilize and water the vegetables regularly.
Further investigations also revealed that there were about five businesspersons in the area who buy the vegetables in bulk and later sell them to a local firm which is one of the major suppliers to a number of out lets.
Some traders found in the area said that the owners of the gardens were selling the vegetables at wholesale price of K10, 000 per bed.
A woman only identified as ‘Amake Esther’ (Mother of Esther) said that there were about five people who buy the vegetables from garden owners who resell the vegetables to a local firm which was a key supplier to the supermarkets.
When asked what they thought about the suitability of the vegetables for consumption given the fecal waste used in fertilizing it, another woman who declined to state her name, said that no one would know that the vegetables were contaminated.
The owners of the gardens proved uncooperative and refused to talk to reporters.

Some Lusaka residents expressed disgust at the conduct of the people involved in this kind of activity gardening and wondered how safe the vegetables were for human consumption.
“We are being fed on dirty vegetables by these people while the council and other people are just watching. This is not good,” said Mike Musonda a Lusaka resident in an interview at the town centre.
Another Lusaka resident Martha Phiri said that the local authority and the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC) the owners of the pond should come up with measures to curbing the trend by the garden owners in order to protect consumers.
“Even the supermarkets that purchase vegetables should come up with ways of ensuring that what they are buying is safe for their customers. If most of the people hear about this they will start shunning buying the vegetables from them,” said Ms Phiri.
Some people from the Chamba Valley area said the sewer pond emits a repugnant smell in the evenings and wondered why other people could use the water and refuse from such sewerage as manure.

Lusaka City Council spokesperson Chanda Makanta said the council was aware about the situation in Chamba Valley and condemned the people behind such acts.

Mrs Makanta said the use of the sewer material for gardening and other activities which endanger the lives of the consumers was against the Public Health Laws and the garden owners should stop using the sewer waste as manure.

ends