Minister Restates Need To Adopt Eco-friendly Packaging
The Minister of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable (MINEPDED) Hele Pierre, has reiterated the urgent need to cast off plastic bags and turn to bio-degradable alternatives.
By Anu Paul
The Minister was speaking during a press conference last month in Yaounde where he released a joint decree No. 004/MINEPDED/MINCOMMERCE of October 24, 2012 regulating the production, importation and trading in non-biodegradable plastics.
The ban on the use of plastic bags goes into effect, April 24, 2014.
Hele Pierre said many alternatives to plastic bags exist in country like raffia leaves, normal papers, banana leaves, needle bags and forest leaves which are bio-degradable and take a few weeks to decompose after usage.
He said government will support all efforts to produce bio-degradable bags needed by the public, adding that other alternatives will be made available and added to the existing ones progressively.
Hele exhorted the population to count on government for new packaging in all the local shops in both urban and rural zones.
He reiterated that the decree which went into application with a Prime Ministerial text No. 2012/2809/PM on September 26, 2012, fixing the modalities and conditions of application in 18 months of full text across nationwide, will go into operation from April 24 as stipulated. He said the text also spells out actions like collecting, stocking, recycling and elimination of all plastic waste.
He added that just a month into the full application of the decree MINEPDED aims to intensify sensitisation to call on the attention of all stakeholders to make the application a reality.
The MINEPDED boss also used the media briefing to present the effects of plastic bags to justify government action and explained the disadvantages of continuous use of plastic bags to environmental sustainability.
He explained that plastic pollution involves the accumulation of plastic products in the environment that adversely affects wildlife, wildlife habitat or humans. Plastic pollution can adversely affect lands, waterways and oceans. Plastic reduction efforts have occurred in some areas in attempts to reduce plastic consumption and promote plastic recycling. The prominence of plastic pollution is correlated with plastics being inexpensive and durable, which lends to high levels of plastics used by humans.
Chlorinated plastics can release harmful chemicals into the surrounding soil, which can then seep into groundwater or other surrounding water sources. This can cause serious harm to the species that drink this water. Animals can be significantly harmed or killed by plastic pollution. Plastic pollution has the potential to poison animals, which can then adversely affect human food supplies.
Meanwhile, over 260 species, including invertebrates, have been reported to have either ingested plastic or become entangled in the plastic. When a species gets entangled, its movement is seriously reduced, therefore making it very difficult to find food. Being entangled usually results in death or severe lacerations and ulcers. It has been estimated that over 400,000 marine mammals perish annually due to plastic pollution in oceans.
In addition, landfill areas are constantly piled high with many different types of plastics. In these landfills, there are many micro-organisms, which speed up the decomposition of bio-degradable plastics, which when broken down, methane is released; a very powerful greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to warming. Some initiative is being taken to equip landfills with devices to capture the methane and use it for energy, but most have not incorporated such technology.
