An environmental lobby group has put into question Kenya’s ability to put to an end to plastic waste menace by 2030.
According to Greenpeace Africa, a recent report by the Kenya Plastics Pact to ensure all plastic packaging in the country is recyclable in eight years’ time is too ambitious and unattainable.
Communications director Hellen Dena said the country’s production of plastic materials currently outstrips its ability to recycle waste.
Kenya Plastics Pact, which brings together stakeholders across the plastic value chain, recently published a roadmap plan whose objective is to ensure all plastic packaging in the country is recyclable or reusable by the year 2030.
The plan by the pact’s business members and other supporters is to ensure that 40 per cent of plastic packaging is effectively recycled by then.
“Data shows we can't recycle our way out of the plastics crisis. Recycling does not match the scale of the plastic that’s being produced, which is one of the reasons why only nine per cent of all the plastic waste produced has been recycled," Dena said in a statement.
"With plastic production projected to increase in the coming years, Kenya will never be able to solve this crisis with only recycling.”
The group said even in developed countries, the recycling rate falls short of 50 per cent, with a minimal percentage of it finally being converted back to packaging.
Greenpeace has also blamed big plastic producers by accusing them of being behind the plastic pollution threat in the country.
Dena said as long as large companies continue with mass production of plastic products, the problem will never be solved.
“While efforts by different stakeholders to reduce plastic pollution is critical and is a clear indication of a growing trend, it isn’t enough to solve the cascade of plastic pollution in the country. The real culprits are the big polluters," she said.
She said the best remedy is to commit the biggest polluters and other stakeholders to step up and drive change by investing in alternative delivery channels and packaging that prioritise refill and reuse models.
The lobby also wants members of the Plastic Pact to work towards achieving an effective legally-binding global plastics treaty to cap and reduce production, use and ultimately end single-use plastic pollution in coming years.
Kenya, just like many developing countries, is facing an environmental crisis owing to an increase in plastic pollution that has threatened both land and marine life.
For instance, Nairobi alone generates about 3,207 tonnes of waste daily, according to the UN-Habitat.
Globally, plastic leakage to the environment is seen doubling to 44 million tonnes a year, while the build-up of plastics in lakes, rivers and oceans will more than triple.
Most pollution comes from larger debris known as macro plastics, but leakage of microplastics (synthetic polymers less than 5mm in diameter) from items like industrial plastic pellets, textiles and tyre wear has also been found to be of serious concern.
A Global Plastics Outlook Policy Scenarios to 2060 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, notes that without radical action to curb demand, increase product lifespans and improve waste management and recyclability, plastic pollution will rise in tandem with an almost threefold increase in plastic use driven by rising populations and incomes.
The report estimates that almost two-thirds of plastic waste in 2060 will be from short-lived items such as packaging, low-cost products and textiles.
“If we want a world that is free of plastic pollution, in line with the ambitions of the United Nations Environment Assembly, we will need to take much more stringent and globally coordinated action,” OECD secretary general Mathias Cormann said in the report released in February this year.
“This report proposes concrete policies that can be implemented along the lifecycle of plastics that could significantly curb – and even eliminate – plastic leakage into the environment,” added the report.
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