Afrochine Chrome Smelting in Selous, Mashonaland West Province Chegutu, as of February 2022 managed to implement a waste management program to save the lives of people in the Selous community.
Central to this investigation is how Afrochine Chrome Smelting in 2022 responded with an improved waste management plan following a mysterious foot rash outbreak that presented a health risk to the community.
Afrochine responded with procuring low sulphur coking coal and repurposing chromite slug rubble for upcycling projects with Sunny yiFeng to produce tiling and roofing sheets.
However, before the interventions, the Selous community together with the Scotsdale, Whaleman and Virginia farm compound dwellers linked a mysterious foot rash sickness to the chromite ore waste that was disposed to surface roads and fill potholes between 2016 and 2020.
In addition, former Afrochine contractor and supplier Lawrence Ngorima confirmed to Zimbabwe Network for Citizen Journalists zncj.org that the coking coal of the period between 2012 to 2020 had high sulphur content, where chances were highly likely that impurities would still be present in the waste after disposal.
Technically, high sulphur content in the cocking coal depletes product quality, so Afrochine was committed to procuring low sulphur coking coal.
“The coking coal that was available at the time was high in sulphur and I was constantly engaged by Afrochine management to supply low sulphur coking coal”, Ngorima explained.
Ngorima further elaborated that, silica is also part of the smelting process used as an agent to dense and bind to the impurities. Using his technical expertise and knowledge about the process. Ngorima opined that the furnace does not completely exhaust the impurities in the waste and there is enough risk associated with the impurities.
“I am sure that silica which binds to the impurities retains a considerable amount of impurities that may cause allergic skin reactions workers are expected to wear protective clothing during the smelting processes”.
“It’s possible that some of the impurities found in ferrochrome chromite ore waste could trigger an allergic reaction if they come into contact with skin or open wounds. In particular, silica can be an irritant, and some people may react to aluminum oxide. It’s important to take precautions when handling these materials” Ngorima explained.
In efforts to manage the waste, private ground transport contractor for Afrochine, Cosmas Svondo said the Afrochine and Sunny yiFeng company entered an upcycling project to make produce roof tiles and paving.
“Today I transport more than 40 tonnes of chromite slug rubble to Sunny yiFeng tiles, where the rubble is further processed into high quality roofing tiles and paving”, said Svodo.
According to the testimonies given by the community the chromite slug rubble had been accumulating at a dedicated plant dumpsite since 2012. Then disposal to surface the roads began in 2016 when enough rubble had accumulated. The earliest cases of the foot rash were then recorded in June 2019 as recalled by one of the interviewed sources.
It innocently started off by chromite spillages which fell off trucks.
Without knowledge, communities and nearby compounds would salvage dumped chromite waste materials to surface walkways and footpaths in the living compounds.
Before taking action on waste disposal, Afrochine Chrome Smelting would dispose of the rubble in the nearby outskirts of the smelting plant and sometimes fill up gravel road potholes to make the road surface even for vehicle movement.
However, that was a double-edged sword which became unpopular – because soon the truck drivers discovered that vehicle tyres durability was deteriorating and rubber easily wearing off.
At the same time, rubble filling was welcomed by the community because it made the road network easier for movement, especially with ox-drawn scotch carts which are the primary mode of local transportation in rural Zimbabwe.
Community members including women and children at the nearby Whaleman and Virginia stretching into parts off Scottsdale farm compound would walk barefoot and sometimes children play in the gravel roads surfaced with the chromite ore waste.
Operations Manager at Afrochine Chrome Smelting, Frank Gao said the company has now implemented safety and health standards for waste disposal in compliance with environmental laws.
“All our operations are in compliance with Environmental Management Agency, including our health safety standards,” said Gao.
Gao added that Afrochine does not dispose of chromite waste to resurface roads anymore.
“ We do not endanger the lives of the community anymore by disposing of waste and exposing them to danger”, said Gao.
To no availability, ZNCJ made efforts to seek comments from Munyaradzi Nhariswa Environmental Management Agency (EMA) Mashonaland West Education and Publicity officer to shed some light on the environmental harm posed by the chrome waste and penalties that may have been fined against Afrochine.
During the early stages of the mysterious outbreak of foot rash, the compound dwellers used herbs and smeared their foot sores with animal fat, but it did not get better.
It took the courage of one, Luston Chiga — who took his six-year-old son to Martindale Mission Clinic for medical treatment.
The investigation reached out to the former Mashonaland West Provincial Medical Director, Dr Godwin Masocha.
When contacted for comment, Dr Masocha said the Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital was still conducting clinical tests and investigations are still underway.
“Yes, our clinics have received patients from the Scotsdale, Whaleman and Virginia farm compounds reporting feet sores, that condition is still under investigation, and we are still conducting medical clinical tests”, said Dr Masocha.
This investigation by zncj.org will unpack stories told by affected families and testimonies from individuals narrating how they lived with the mysterious foot sickness linked to the ill-disposed chromite ore waste.
It was at a later stage after the community discovered that only women and children who walked barefoot were affected by the foot rash.
The community decided to scrap off the rubble using scotch carts and Afrochine eventually stopped disposing of chromite waste exposed into the community. .
The case of the Laston family
Laston is one of the displaced farm workers who lost his job as a farm worker at Virgina farm in 2001. After the land reform program, Laston resettled at the Wakefield farm compound where he was making a living as a brick molder.
As a norm and function of poverty, his six-year-old would go out and play barefoot in the road and pathways that had been patched with chromite ore rubble.
In December 2020, the boy’s mother discovered that her son had a foot rush that was worsening with sores under the feet.
Chiga described the foot rash and sores as nothing he had seen before in his family history.
“The rash spread on top of the foot until it had little pockets of puss. The sore foot would harden and would gradually crack, Chiga described.
Chiga added that the mysterious foot rash did not respond to any indigenous knowledge remedies that he sought from traditional healers.
More children and women started to report signs of the same foot rash and sores and sought help from local traditional herbalists.
“We realised that it was not only our son, but other children were also affected by the foot rash, which then I decided to take my soon to Martindale mission clinic to seek medical care and failed attempts to seek help from traditional healers”, said Chiga.
After using cream prescribed at the clinic, the foot rash reappears from time to time and has not completely gone away.
ZNCJ visited Martinadle clinic to confirm the case and the severity of the illeness. A senior staff member at Martinadle clinic who preferred anonymity told ZNCJ that they treated more than five patience of a foot rash suspected to be linked to chromite rubble ore.
Unofficially, the Martinadale senior staffer described that, the condition presented excess dehydration of the skin around the feet, alluding that this could have been caused by reactive agents that the skin would have been in contact with.
After a year of continued reappearance of the rash, Chiga was advised to take his son to the district hospital which he was reluctant to do.
To date, Chiga manages his son’s skin condition with applying petroleum jelly.
The case of Sharai Magwanza
Zimbabwe Network of Citizen Journalists had the opportunity to learn about the experience of Sharai Magwanza, a widowed single mother, who was 28 years old when she first encountered the foot rash.
Magwanza is still showing signs of the foot rash and has not healed or cured as seen in the pictures below.
Magwanza said she always walked the roads wearing flip-flops and sometimes walked barefoot during the rainy season to avoid breaking the flip-flops on the muddy roads.
She added that the rash has not completely gone away since 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I used to walk all these roads in flip-flops and sometimes barefoot. I started noticing the rash and sores in 2021, but I never bothered to seek medical help because I could not afford it.”
“In late 2022, I heard others saying that it was the rubble waste that made us sick”, said Magwanza.
To date, Magwanza continues to manage the mysterious foot rush that is linked to the chromite ore waste.
To date, the Mashonaland West Provincial Medical Director’s Office has not presented scientific findings to explain the foot rash cases.The Office of the Mashonaland west PMD has been occupied by three officials, since the earliest reports.
Tshingshan group continues to expand its operations in Mvuma breaking new ground for another ferrochrome plant operated under Afrochine. In November 2023, China – Zimbabwe relations have yielded a mega deal that built Hwange power units 7 and 8 to the tune of USD 1.78 billion.
This work was produced as a result of a grant provided by the Africa-China Reporting Project based at the Wits Centre for Journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The opinions held are of the author(s).