Africa Recycles Plastic Bags

Plastic bags are hazardous and we certainly know their ravages. It is not a matter of stating them anymore, but reminding people that judicious choices have to be made daily. The world is suffering from this scourge, however, the African continent is the most affected; its landscape is disfigured and its fauna and flora are in distress. But gradually, its inhabitants and governments are gaining consciousness about the problem and taking actions at various scales to protect their environments.

The production of plastic bags requires oil and often natural gas; both are non-renewable. Additionally, prospecting and drilling for these resources contribute to the destruction of fragile habitats and ecosystems around the globe.

Toxic chemicals needed to create plastic produce pollution during the manufacturing process and the energy needed to manufacture and transport disposable bags requires the use of more resources and also creates global warming emissions.

The detrimental effects of plastic bags are inescapable: lying as waste on roadsides, choking animals, clogging storm drains which leads to flooding and increased risk of diseases among others.

Once a plastic bag is disposed of, it takes over 1000 years to degrade.  Unfortunately, plastic bags do not biodegrade (ability to decompose by biological agents such as bacteria), instead they photodegrade: the sun breaks down the plastic into smaller toxic particles polluting soil, air and water forever.

Are there any solutions?

Reducing: That means using fewer resources. South Africa is the first African country to fight against plastic bags that disfigure its cities and landscapes. Since 2003, South African consumers have been required to pay for plastic bags in the stores. Their lifestyles have now adjusted, shifting habits of mindless consumption to reducing and reusing. The generated profits go to an environmental fund dedicated to promoting waste recycling.

Kenya and Uganda have made the thin and flimsy plastic bag illegal. This one, however, because of its mediocre quality, it is not reusable and has a poor recycling property.

Recycling: One of several options to manage waste is the process of collecting discarded materials, taking the products at the end of their functional life and transforming them into new products.

Many countries from around the world, particularly those in Africa where the problem is vast, have begun to make changes.  Some brilliant initiatives can be found in Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Benin where small enterprises are developing, picking up, washing, weaving, knitting or crocheting plastic bags into beautiful purses or totes, jewelry, rugs and fine home décor objects.

Last year in New York, a price was awarded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to a Moroccan cooperative named IFASSEN. IFASSEN consists of a group of craftswomen who collect plastic bags, wash them, dry them, and then cut them into bands before braiding them with a local plant known as esparto-grass (also known as needle-grass; a sturdy, coarse, spiky grass native to northern Africa and southern Spain). They use a traditional know-how of basketry, transforming these unwanted plastic bags into practical, reusable and fashionable baskets and purses.

Recycling plastic bag is a fast-growing activity in Ivory Coast as well, and sellers of these products are increasingly multiplying. They handle more than two tons of used plastic bags in a day and sell them to industries committed to collecting and recycling plastic wraps and bags, transforming them into other plastic products. This rapid expansion is mainly a result of rising prices of polystyrene, a chemical used in the plastic manufacturing process.

Following the same idea, the city of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso launched a bright action to get rid of its plastic waste: recycling all kinds of plastic products collected by and bought from the population to manufacture trash cans.  This initiative is expanding to other West African countries.

Niger is turning plastic waste into filler for its perpetually crumbling roads. In a successful experimental project financed six years ago by the European Union, bricks made of plastic bags were used to fill potholes around Niamey, the capital.

Today, the government of Niger buys used plastic bags collected by the population.  These used plastic wastes are compressed with a new ceramic mold technology and are melted into bricks. The cost of bricks is but a fraction of traditional road works, allowing one of the world’s poorest countries to do more to restore its haphazard road network. Costs are minimal, jobs are created and roads are improved!

In a similar project in Mali two years ago, plastic bags were used as the asphalt base to pave roads.

Unfortunately, plastic bags are not about to disappear if they remain cheap to make, readily available to shoppers and simple to toss out in the street. Recycling rates for plastic bags remain extremely low because the benefit of recycling them is not financially appealing; in fact, the process of collecting, sorting, cleaning and transforming are costly. Furthermore, recycling itself can be quite polluting due to the contamination of inks and toxic fumes attributed to the melting of plastic.

What to do? Reusing! The answer, according to many environmentalists, is high-quality reusable shopping bags made of materials that do not harm the environment during the manufacturing process and do not need to be discarded after each use.

In Malawi for example, to reduce the use of plastic bags, a non-profit organization called “Africa Bags” launched in 2007 hand-crafts of all sorts of reusable bags. At the same time, it helps to economically empower the seven villages included in the project.

The main point that ties many of these solutions together is a change in mindset. One of the key solutions is to embrace a cultural shift away from the use-and-toss approach. High-quality, toxin-free products are available for those who care to use them. Each of these long-lasting, durable bags in use keeps hundreds, if not thousands, of cheaper disposable products away from harming the environment

Steer clear of traditional, harmful chemicals which only hurt the surroundings by buying environmentally-friendly, non-toxic alternatives or make your own!