War on Plastic, why companies must take action to beat plastic pollution.
With the increasing frequency of plastic generation, there
should be sharing of responsibility in fighting its environmental effects, this
applies more on single use or disposable plastics. In my country we are largely
farmers who rely on agriculture to survive, today our wells and streams of
water are drying up, yet rivers like River Mayanja, Kafu and Mpanga are facing
increasing pressure from human activities including plastic pollution. This is
not favorable to an agricultural based economy that also faces conditions of
little or no rainfall sometimes. So when rivers dry up it will worsen the
effect brought by the frequent droughts we are experiencing.
Of recent together with Tooro Kingdom Officials and fellow
activists, we visited River Mpanga in western Uganda and we held a community
plastic clean up. The river gets its water from the Rwenzori mountains and
pours it Lake George, as it flows through over 7 districts its collecting
material dumped from all the urban centers. These districts are home to millions
of people who keep cattle and farmers of commercial crops like coffee and tea,
the river also flows through national parks, meaning that the plastic coming
along with are a danger to the wild animals in the park.
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| Cleaning River Mpanga in Fort Potal |
Why we must act now
on plastics and what we can do.
An initiative like the one at
Kasanga Primary School can help their community avoid polluting the water body.
Over 600 tonnes of plastics are consumed every day in Uganda, but most of it is
disposed off irresponsibly. This makes it important that companies that are
generating this waste should be made to pay a fee to the local local
governments to helping the management of the plastic waste.
Businesses must put in mind the after use life of the
packaging or other materials part of the product. For plastics the life after
use can go as far as 450 years. Efforts
to switch to sustainable packaging must be given priority consideration, almost
all beverages on local market are packed in plastic bottles and plastic bags. With
green packaging companies are set to have a competitive advantage, the process
involves the use materials and manufacturing method for the packaging of goods.
This has low impact on both energy and consumption and on the environment.
It should be noted that Africa has the most number of
countries that have banned the plastics bag, but it is surprising that plastic
bags and plastic bottles make up over 80% percent total waste collections.
Uganda has banned the plastic bag it 3 times but no implementation and
enforcement mechanisms as well as lack of political will to see it through. In
2018 the President ordered that section 2 of the 2009 Financial Act that
prohibits the importation, local manufacturing, sale or use of the plastic bags
to be effected. In 2018 the global green
packaging market was expected to grow by more than 60% being powered by the
waste reduction, increasing awareness of carbon emissions, rapidly growing
economies, a lack of natural resources
and changing consumer ‘s preference for eco-friendly products.
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| Noting down companies contributing to this plastic collection near Lake Victoria at Ggaba |
Addressing the
challenge;
Despite the fact that people need to be sensitized about
plastic disposal, the businesses along the product life cycle are largely to
blame. Many business executives in Uganda have failed to help their companies
to put in place policy and strategies for these businesses to be sustainable.
This is because many have failed to understand what corporate social
responsibility is to their companies, with this they can’t innovatively design
solutions for better impact. While engaging with students of Kasanga Primary
school they showed me recycling bins donated by one of the local soft drinks
manufacturer company, the bins help them dump waste while sorting them. However
such initiatives have failed to be rolled out in open public spaces, this has
left the people with no choice but to dump the plastics anywhere in the
environment including rivers and other water bodies.
Let us be the solution to plastic pollution.
#BeatPlasticPollution #SustainableBusiness #ClimateCrisis
#SaveOurRivers #SaveOurOceans
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