In recent weeks a new Econet business has “swept” the city of Harare — quite literally. Clean City is a digital platform used by private waste collection companies to collect rubbish bins from homes. It uses a franchise business model and is simply providing a digital platform that links companies that collect waste with private truck owners and customers.
It is a unique platform and probably the first in Africa. All the trucks are branded “Clean City”. Through the initiative, the city has been divided into 10 Clean City Franchise Zones and each Zone has been allocated to a franchise collector.
The collector uses an App to collect from customers who have paid by EcoCash mobile money. The Clean City App is part of Vaya Logistics App and is open to anyone who has downloaded the Vaya App.
There are currently over 650 000 Econet customers who use Vaya.
Over 100 truck owners have registered their trucks for use by Clean City through Vaya Truck. They are all required to carry the brand of the franchise and follow strict rules.
Some of the truck owners have even brought their own specialist waste collection vehicles as this is a very lucrative business.
Each franchisee has to also operate a community service for cleaning public areas in the Zone of operation. The Community Environmental Services [CES] team pick up waste in streets, where the Clean City customers are.
According to one of the Franchisees, Zimbabwe Sunshine Group’s Cliff Chivanga, “We have been working quietly over the last 2 months collecting waste from over 20 000 households.
“As a Clean City franchisee we have access to the best transport and logistics platform Vaya, and element that now complements our own experience in waste management. Every single day we are satisfied when we see the neighbourhoods where we are collecting waste becoming waste free zones.”
Although the service is currently only in Harare, it will be a fully national service by the end of the year, in cities where it is required.
The platform was developed by an Econet group based out of Nairobi and there are plans to roll it out in other African countries.