CARE clean-up in Lome

A new project to collect rubbish from Lome's streets will help to protect the health of some 350,000 people, CARE said on Monday.

"The piles of garbage that litter Lome breed disease-carrying insects and rats, and cause outbreaks of illnesses," Lora Wuennenberg, CARE's deputy director of the Southern and West Africa region said in a news release. City-wide refuse collection is limited because of "tight public resources". The rubbish collection system will improve the condition of many neighbourhoods, Wuennenberg said.

CARE's urban development project aims to set up a rubbish collection system in the third district in Lome where workers from five rubbish collection associations will be equipped with wheelbarrows, forks, shoes and gloves to help them collect household waste. Refuse will then be transported to temporary dumping areas, built and managed by CARE, from where government services will take it to the final dumping ground.

The associations will receive help in setting up a system to recover the costs of their services from households benefiting from the rubbish collection. In addition families will receive information on the positive impact hygiene and rubbish collection has on their health, CARE said.