Golden opportunity for a growing continent

BY THE end of this century, our planet will host another four billion people. Three billion of them will be born in Africa. That’s another three billion people with the associated increase in demand for food, water and energy.

Rising to the challenge of these needs presents a daunting task. However, considered from a different lens, it’s another three billion people with hopes, aspirations and dreams. Humanity, has the potential to take – yet it also has the power to create.

Plastic was created a century ago. It is one of the most groundbreaking material solutions in humanity’s history, transforming modern life. Food is kept fresher for longer. We can protect delicate, life-giving devices and medicines, even when they’re shipped to remote areas to deliver care.

Yet today we’re at risk of allowing an incredible invention to damage our planet and threaten the precious resources that we’re going to need to sustain us in years to come.

Research from the Ocean Conservancy shows that nearly 80 % of plastic waste in the ocean begins as litter on land, the vast majority of which travels to the sea by rivers.

One study estimates that over 90% of plastic in the ocean comes from 10 major rivers around the world – eight in Asia, and two in Africa. This poor waste management is not just an environmental disaster, it has major safety implications, too.

Take Ghana, where open drains fill with litter, hindering water flow and leading to flooding. The result?

A proposed plastics ban in 2015 because of a flood-related national disaster in which 200 people died and 46370 people were affected.

Here in Africa we have a fantastic opportunity to make plastic a vital part of our burgeoning circular economy.

We have an enviable passion for development. So why not harness this and create an international blueprint for how successful circular economies can thrive, with plastic as an obvious example?

If we consider the potential economic value that can be derived from plastics post-use, throwing it away may be equivalent to physically throwing Africa’s money away, too.

Companies need to ensure that all plastics sold into packaging applications have a market after they are used, through application development, new material designs, partnerships, and investments.

Plastic should only be used when it offers the lowest environmental impact (through its life cycle for that application).

We must accelerate recovery of plastic and reap value from it.

A report by Plastics SA shows the plastics recycling industry in South Africa created jobs for almost 58100 people through the formal and informal sector, contributing over $30million to the economy in 2017.

For example, in Ghana after the 2015 floods, it was the Public Private Partnerships that lead to the launch of projects such as Ghana Recycling Initiative by Private Enterprise, which identified plastic modified concrete for construction, wood-plastic composite for furniture and plastic modified bitumen for roads as second life solutions.

Those three billion extra people have the chance to benefit from a new, sustainable future for plastics – but only if we take action now.