By Kevin Tafara
The City of Bulawayo is assessing the feasibility of adopting the Geo Pomona waste management model, with affordability emerging as a key consideration in ongoing discussions between the two parties.
This follows a visit to the Geo Pomona Waste Management site in Harare on Wednesday by a Bulawayo delegation led by Mayor David Coltart.
The delegation, which included the Deputy Mayor, Town Clerk, councillors and senior council officials, toured the facility’s waste sorting operations to gain an understanding of its operations and potential application in Bulawayo.
Coltart described the visit as informative, saying Bulawayo needed a similar facility but the council first had to establish whether it could afford the investment.
“It’s been very useful. This has been a highly informative trip for us. There’s no doubt that Bulawayo needs a facility like this. The critical thing for us, though, is what will it cost, and is it affordable for us?” he said.
He said discussions between the City of Bulawayo and Geo Pomona were ongoing and had already included a visit by a technical team.
Coltart said the council would now focus on examining the financial implications and understanding precisely what Geo Pomona could offer.
“Now we go to the next stage of understanding the finances, understanding with precision what a company like Geo Pomona can offer us,” he said.
However, he emphasised that the visit did not amount to a commitment by the council to enter into a contract with the company.
“I need to stress on behalf of the council that we are not at all closed to a contract. The issue for us is what is on offer, what will it cost the residents of Bulawayo, and how will we afford to pay for it,” Coltart said.
He added that any potential agreement would have to go through the appropriate legal and administrative processes.
“I can’t commit the city council to a contract in this conversation now. I have no such authority. There are legal processes that we need to go through,” he said.
According to Geo Pomona, the site operated as an uncontrolled dumpsite for 37 years before the company took over in April 2022.
It has since been developed into a managed waste management facility, featuring a sorting plant commissioned on June 5, 2025, and a water treatment plant.
The company said plans were also underway to generate electricity from waste, although the waste-to-energy plant is not yet operational.
As at October 26, 2026, Geo Pomona reported that it had handled a cumulative 614,144.47 tonnes of waste.
This comprised 435,331.23 tonnes collected from illegal dumps, 143,160.24 tonnes through door-to-door collection and 35,653 tonnes from skip bins.
The company’s sorting plant has the capacity to process up to 1,080 tonnes of waste per day, while its workforce stands at 1,514 employees, more than half of whom are women.
Geo Pomona said it remained open to further engagement with the City of Bulawayo and expressed its willingness to share expertise developed by its local engineers with local authorities across the country.
Coltart, however, noted that the financial sustainability of such projects depended largely on economies of scale.
“You will appreciate that a lot of this comes down to the economics of it. We need economies of scale,” he said.