The Masvingo City Council Sewage work Superintendent Mr Innocent Munhazu recently told local journalists during a media tour that human activities such as stealing of manhole covers as well as washing pots using vim and sand were main causes of a rapid decay of sewer pipes at Rujeko sewer pump station, Hevoi FM news can report.
“Due to communities stealing our sewer manholes because of scrap metal being sold nowadays, a lot of sand got into our sewer lines through excessive storm drains, also because of serious power cuts residents have resorted to other means of cooking ending up using sand and vim to wash their pots and the sand is deposited in the gullies.
“This sand has an effect of decaying our sewer pipes pumps because instead of us removing sludge, we are now pumping sand. Once in a while we ended up pumping about 80 tons of sand because it was now choking our sewer reticulation network.” Munhazu said.
The Rujeko sewer pump station is designed to dislodge a reasonable 1 ton of sand a month but that has gone up to a maximum 40 tons a case which Mr Munhazu has got to urge members of the community to be aware of the effect and impact of sand deposits into the sewer reticulation system as they are causing a rapid decay of sewer pipes