**2.5 Waste collection in the formal and informal settlements: a comparison**

As already alluded above, there is no waste collection in informal settlements but formal settlements are receiving these services nearly every working day of the week. Such discriminatory practices are not sustainable and does not auger well with environmental justice, which calls for equitable environmental treatment of all city inhabitants. There should be equitable share of environmental ills and risks in the city in order to achieve environmental justice [17]. However the urban poor are always found in environmentally hazardous places and this place a special burden on them because the poor environments add a cost on the way they do their business [13]. Environmental justice calls for reduction of environmental ills and elimination of all environmental threats that harm people [37]. Schoenfish and Johnson [37] further argued that environmental justice is for all citizens and environmental discrimination exposes the discriminated people to high risk of harm. Reduction of such risks will go a long way in improving the lives of urban poor who always find it difficult to access important city services or are working where important services are inadequate [38]. This does not auger well with the dictates of sustainable development, which calls for poverty alleviation efforts among the poor through improving their living conditions. Environmental justice is a right for all to be protected from environmental degradation and advocates for every citizen to live, work and play in healthy environments [18, 37]. This is again critical for sustainable development as it allows for social inclusion and social justice [12].

There is a big disparity in service delivery between formal and informal sector in the city of Masvingo. There is preference of the formal than the informal sector and this is a direct violation of people in informal settlements' right to the city and environmental justice. Rights to the city calls for all the city inhabitants to be accorded the same treatment in terms of service provision [14, 24]. Coggin and Pietersen [39] argued that such discriminatory practices divide the city between the propertied and privileged on one hand and the property less and the underprivileged on the other and this is not good for a sustainable city. Cities of the 21st century should celebrate urban diversity where all city inhabitants are given equal treatment [30, 31]. Coggin and Pietersen [39] further argued that rights to the city promotes inclusivity in the city, it endeavours to dismantle all structures that produces exclusionary practices in the city and this will create sustainable cities. The city of Masvingo therefore needs to acknowledge and recognise people in the in formal settlements as citizens of the city and provide the important services that will lead to safe and liveable spaces. Denying them waste collection services is a denial of their rights to the city and is not sustainable because it excludes other section of the city in waste collection services. The wide spread urbanisation of poverty in contemporary cities call for paradigm shift in the way cities do their business. It calls for inclusion of urban poor in the development interventions of the city [21–23]. The city is not only for the propertied people of the city but it is also for the poor [5]. Contemporary cities are now political collectivity and a place where public interests are defined and realised, which means that the interests of all city inhabitants should be observed [22, 23, 30, 31, 40]. Failure to embrace urban diversity is usually a result of insistence on old and rigid regulatory frameworks that are failing to realise the realities in their cities [2, 8]. Roy [8] further argued that the diversity in cities of today calls for a new planning theory that realises the prevalence of urban poverty and plan for it. Cities of today cannot afford to develop without urban informality because this phenomenon

has developed to be a permanent feature of urbanity [5]. Urban policies need to reform so that they embrace the new forms of urbanism, which are coming up as a result of urbanisation of poverty [2, 7, 8, 41]. The rigid urban planning policies with their deep entrenchment in neo-liberal urbanism have failed to cater for new ways of life that are coming up in cities as a result of urbanisation of poverty [10, 30, 39]. These traditional planning systems have long been overtaken by events of 21st century urbanism, which call for flexible planning and inclusion of all city inhabitants in the development of the city. These new land uses such as the informal activities need to be included in the provisioning systems of the city so as to allow them to enjoy urban life [14].
