Young volunteers in Ivory Coast are leading the fight against plastic pollution by collecting used bottles that are often discarded in the vast Ebrié lagoon which abuts Ivory Coast’s economic capital Abidjan.
Local reports have it that the Citizens’ initiative started two years ago when one Charles Gore Bi decided to act against the scourge of plastic pollution.
In a chat with newsmen, he said “Quite simply, the idea of cleaning up the shoreline came from the need to clean up the environment in which I live”.
“I’m here all the time and the garbage come in all the time as well, so I decided to start by cleaning up where I lived.”
Remarkably, Gore Bi’s efforts progressively gained attention and the Plateau Bay’s city council met with the youth committed to collecting waste and connected them with recycling companies.
Reports have it that instead of sending the collected bottles to open-air landfills, the waste is sold to recyclers. Once their large net is filled with waste, the young group of volunteers that collects plastic waste everyday sells it. A full net can go up for 7,000 CFA francs or about 10 US dollars that they will share amongst themselves, reports said.
Gore Bi said “Once we started earning some money though this, it motivated us, we started loving it because it keeps you fed, as we say around here”.
According to the UNICEF, Abidjan produces over 288 tonnes of waste each day. However, waste collection remains one of the city’s weak spots.
It was learnt that in Abidjan, the ministry of de Hydraulics, sanitation, and Hygiene delegates the management of waste to two companies. The deputy director of the Plateau municipality’s Environment department, Bénédicte Aka said the companies’ “specifications are unclear”.
Meanwhile, it was learnt that in a bid to shake things up, Recyplast’s founder set up 50 waste collection points and pays residents who sort their trash for recycling. His company buys a bag of 20kg plastic for a little over one dollar and 50 cents.
Nayef Salame, the head of a plastic bottle recycling company Recyplast explained that “We do promote and communicate, we raise awareness on the use and reduction of plastic, but also we reward their eco-citizen action, that is to say the waste they manage to pre-select, to sort internally. When they come to our collection points, we buy this plastic waste”.
If he recognize that the Ivorian state “took a step in favour of fighting plastic pollution 10 years
ago”, he laments a lack of regulations in the sector but believes there is still “much that needs to
be done”.
It could be recalled that in 2013, Ivory Coast banned the production, selling and ownership of
plastic bags.
Records have it that when the policy was set to enter into force in 2014, business owners
protested in Abidjan opposing the move so much so that presently, the law is hardly enforced in
the country, which produces over 200,000 tones of plastic bags every year, according to the
Ministry of Hydraulics.
SUPPORT NIGERIAN CANADIAN NEWSPAPER CANADA
If you like our work and want to keep enjoying what we offer, kindly support us by donating to the Nigerian Canadian News by clicking here
Share your thoughts in the comments section below
Do you want to share any news or information with us? If yes, contact the publisher at publisher@test1.nascitest.club
