During my stay, I was shocked by the amount of plastic waste found in the streets. I am mainly talking about my home country and I do not wish to generalize all African countries.

My observation

In every corner of the street, there are plastic wastes thrown away by the population. On the roads, in the gutters (causing blockages of pipes), in administrative areas, …

If we look closer, we can see that industries and merchants use a lot of plastic-based products and the population does not hesitate to use them.

So we end up with a lot of plastic waste that takes between 100 and 1000 years to completely decompose. So in the meantime, they are moved by the wind and gradually shred. This makes picking up and cleaning more complicated.

Why does the population react this way?

I think the population does not realize it. They are completely unaware of the damage this can cause to the environment.

On a daily basis, a good part of the population is often worried about how to make money, find what they are going to eat, have acceptable living conditions.

In a short-term vision, I can understand that daily life takes over what could happen in the next 10, 20 or 30 years.

What can be done to remedy this?

Raising awareness will take time and I think it needs to be the politicians who take charge of the situation and start working on solutions with companies to produce less plastic.

Another line of work would also be to work on educating the population: knowing how to put waste in a bin and not on the ground, not systematically asking for bags when not needed, …

My conclusion

In sum, it is a situation that is not simple and will surely take years to be better managed. To preserve our soils and our environment at a minimum, we must quickly start addressing the issue of plastics with appropriate policies.