**Figure 3.**

*Open dumping of waste in open spaces in and around the city.*

**Figure 4.** *Recycling of metal waste in Mucheke.*

The pictures above show the rudimental waste management practices that are undertaken by the people in the informal settlements in Masvingo city. These initiatives are attempts to keep their environments clean and reduce the threats that are associated with unclean environments.. These methods are however rudimental hence are likely to cause further environmental damages in the city. For example method such as burning is likely to create green house gases that damage the ozone layer thereby exacerbating problems of climate change. The heaped scrap metals in Mucheke are too close to the residential (less than 8 m) and can be home to disease causing agents such as mosquitoes and rats. One of the respondents in the informal

#### *Towards Sustainable Housing: Waste Management in Informal Settlements in Masvingo... DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98746*

settlements said that the heaped metal are home to mosquitoes, rats and even dangerous animals such as snakes hence they live in constant threats of danger. He said:

*"…mosquitoes give us sleepless nights during rainy season and rats are a big problem again due to these heaped metals.."*

The people in the informal settlements in Masvingo city are therefore living in environments that continuously threaten their lives due to the waste that surround their areas. They therefore live in environments that keep them vulnerable to disease outbreaks [28]. Wilkinson further argued that the environments in informal settlements are severely curtailed by poor waste management, which is often done in streets, which in turn escalates their risks of disease contamination. Poor waste management practices are not sustainable as it pollutes the environment and expose people to diseases. Failure to provide waste management services to the informal settlements does not only expose people in the informal sector at risk of disease outbreaks but the whole city thereby affecting the sustainability of the whole city. For example during the outbreak of Cholera in 2005, the R-Section of Mucheke was severely affected and this put the whole city at risk of contamination.

Masvingo city needs to recognise informal settlements as an alternative and viable housing option and extend their services to their areas for the sustainability and inclusivity of the city. They need to incorporate these informal areas into the city's planning systems and provide services to them so that they improve the living conditions in these slum areas. This will reduce social injustices and also improve the inclusivity of the city, which will result in sustainable housing. Masvingo city like any other city in the global South need to adopt pro-poor development initiatives that are tailored to improve the conditions of the marginalised groups of the society, However Masvingo City still believes in neo-liberal development intervention, where elitist planning approaches are used and the net effect is the marginalisation of urban poor. Most city services therefore do not reach informal settlements and this is a denial of these people's right to the city [7, 18, 27]. Denying the people in the informal settlements good quality living conditions is also a denial of environmental justice and right to the city. Fisher et al. [29], argued that environmental justice aims to deliver among other things access to city services for better, safe and liveable spaces. Right to the city is a right that is offered unselectively but each every city inhabitant has to enjoy it and special attention should be given to marginalised groups of city who should be proritised in giving city inhabitants their rights to the city [21, 23, 24, 30, 31]. When the marginalised people of the society are included in the development initiatives of the city, this will result in sustainable development [16]. Environmental injustice often experienced by the urban poor are a result of unfair distribution of environmental bads and goods where the urban poor are forced to live in areas characterised by vulnerable ecological environments due to poor services but the most affluent groups of the city are the only ones that enjoys the environmental goods [18, 32]. The environmental threat that has been caused by poor waste management in the informal settlements should be a wakeup call to the city authorities of Masvingo city to try and plan for waste management service delivery in the informal settlements because it has a strong bearing on the sustainability of the whole city. Environmental management is very critical component in the sustainability of the city hence Masvingo city should device environmental management systems that cater for every city inhabitant including people in the informal settlements. **Table 3** sumerises some of the initiatives that are employed by the people in the informal sector to create safe and livable work space.

Recycling is the most popular way of waste management in informal settlements in the city of Masvingo. Most informal settlements are associated with livelihoods of the poor hence their spaces are characterised by a lot of waste from their livelihoods. Most of this waste is recycled for sale or reuse. Most of the scrap metal is


#### **Table 3.**

*Initiatives taken to manage solid waste in informal settlements in Masvingo City.*

recycled for sale to scrap metal dealers in the city. Plastics are also recycled for sale to plastic dealers and in this way they are making their places cleaner and environmentally friendly surroundings. Recycling efforts are good local initiatives in the reducing waste in areas settled by urban informality because it forms bottom-up initiatives that are more sustainable than top-down [20].
