UNEP: Activists hopeful African countries will reach common position on banning plastic wastes
By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), which hosts the 3-day U.N. Environment Assembly opening in Nairobi on Monday, says plastic pollution in Africa is accelerating, driven in part by poor rubbish collection and lack of recycling facilities.
The problem poses “a significant threat for the environment and the economies of the continent,” a UNEP report said.
In Nairobi, African countries will try to reach a common position on banning the import of plastic waste into the continent, with a view to talks for an international agreement against plastic pollution, some activists expressed hope.
“The plastic bags are real killers,” Hama Abdoulaye, a shepherd living near Niamey, the capital of the Sahel state of Niger told Daily Sabah.
He added, “The animals swallow plastic when they graze on the grass, and die slowly.”
“If nothing is done in a few years, Africa will become a dustbin of plastic bags and waste,” said Ousmane Danbadji, head of a nongovernmental organization (NGO) called the Niger Network for Water and Sanitation.
“There is a great risk of seeing all the waste from industrialized countries dumped here in Africa,” said Yves Ikobo, head of a grassroots organization in DR Congo called Planete Verte RDC.
To tackle the growing plastic waste problem, United Nations members next week will hold a three-day meeting on Earth’s environmental woes.
From Antananarivo to Dakar via Nairobi and Conakry, African cities are scarred by huge landfills where plastic waste is measured in thousands of tons.
The dumps are smelly and dangerous, releasing smoke and toxic particles. They are also a place where impoverished men, women and children pick through the filth to find enough to survive.
Some 300 million tons of plastic waste – the equivalent weight of the planet’s human population – are produced each year. But globally less than 10% is recycled, a figure that anecdotally is far smaller in Africa, although reliable statistics for the continent are rare.
Africa is already a long-established destination for other hazardous products and materials such as batteries or used electrical and electronic components, particularly in Ghana and Nigeria.
In a letter to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said it was “finalizing a draft regulation” on harmonizing national rules among its 15 members.
However, member states “have not yet agreed … on a deadline for the import of plastics,” it admitted.
He argued that, “There is a lack of commitment from many states in Africa,” said John Gakwavu, head of a Rwandan environmental conservation NGO, Danbadji, of Niger Network, agreed.
“We can’t do anything against the proliferation (of plastic waste) because politicians are not really committed to the fight,” he said. But the lack of commitment is not just a question of weak governance. It is also linked to the economic and social impact of the plastics sector, which is a big employer in several countries.
“I don’t think African countries will take exactly the same position,” said Nhlanhla Sibisi of Greenpeace Africa, based in Johannesburg. “
Meanwhile, grassroots work on the environment – something that was absent for so long in Africa – is picking up.
In some locations, citizens are working to pick up plastic in the streets and on the beaches, and some cautious projects in recycling have started up.
Bright stars include Libreville and Abidjan where, thanks to a collaboration with UNESCO and a Colombian company, a factory for recycling plastic into bricks opened in 2020 with a view to building hundreds of schools in Ivory Coast.
