M’mbelwa District Council Principal Environmental Officer, James Pelani has said clean environment was key to communities’ healthy living as it prevents people from catching diseases that sprout out of filthy surroundings.
He was speaking on Friday at Mzimba Boma when he led multitudes of Mzimba residents and M’mbelwa District Council employees in a clean-up exercise.
The clean-up exercises took place in all places including trading centres such as Euthini, Jenda, Emfeni, Kafukule, Edingeni , markets, schools, churches and townships.
“The aims of these clean up exercises are for the good living of our people. We want members of the communities to live in better environments knowing filthy environments are a source of various vectors that spread diseases. By cleaning places we avoid diseases such as malaria which are spread through mosquitoes which breed in stagnant water and filthy environments,’’ Pelani pointed out.
He said as a council they have decided to make the clean-up exercises routine as they would be taking place once every month.
A student at Mzimba Business College, Ephraim Songa warned people against littering.
“We should all strive to live in good environments. It saddens me that some people continue to drop leftovers such as banana and sugarcane peels all over. That’s being a bad citizen. Let’s all work together to achieve clean townships,’’ he said.
Chairperson of Mzimba Civil Society Organisations, Christopher Melele hailed community members from Mzimba district for coming out to clean various areas saying they should learn to take care of the environment.
He said people should embrace clean-up exercise as part of their everyday life undertaking.
The National Clean-Up Exercise was launched by President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera two years ago for all Malawians to take care of the environment in which they live.
