What can be done to prevent Africa from becoming the world's biggest dumping ground for plastic?

That's one of the big questions facing United Nations members next week at a stock-taking on Earth's environmental woes.

From Antananarivo to Dakar via Nairobi and Conakry, African cities are scarred by huge landfills where plastic waste is measured in the thousands of tonnes.

The dumps are smelly and dangerous, releasing smoke and toxic particles. They are also a place where impoverished men, women and children pick through the filth to find enough to survive.

Blown by the wind or swept downstream in rivers, plastic waste pollutes the sea, forests and fields, threatening wildlife -- and eventually humans too, because microscopic particles enter the food chain.

"The plastic bags are real killers," said Hama Abdoulaye, a shepherd living near Niamey, the capital of the Sahel state of Niger.

"The animals swallow plastic when they graze on the grass, and die slowly."

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which hosts the three-day UN Environment Assembly opening in Nairobi on Monday, says plastic pollution in Africa is accelerating, driven in part by poor rubbish collection and lack of recycling facilities.

The problem poses "a significant threat for the environment and the economies of the continent," it said in a recent report.

Some 300 million tonnes of plastic waste -- the equivalent weight of the planet's human population -- are produced each year.

But globally less than 10 percent is recycled, a figure that anecdotally is far smaller in Africa, although reliable statistics for the continent are rare.

"If nothing is done in a few years, Africa will become a dustbin of plastic bags and waste," said Ousmane Danbadji, head of an NGO called the Niger Network for Water and Sanitation.

- Knock-on -

In 2018, China decided to ban the import of plastic waste, a move followed by other Asian countries such as the Philippines and Malaysia.

This has raised fears of a knock-on effect -- that wealthy economies will increasingly turn to Africa to dispose of their plastic rubbish.

Africa is already a long-established destination for other hazardous products and materials such as batteries or used electrical and electronic components, particularly Ghana and Nigeria.

"There is a great risk of seeing all the waste from industrialised countries dumped here in Africa," said Yves Ikobo, head of a grassroots organisation in DR Congo called Planete Verte RDC.

In Nairobi, African countries will try to reach a common position on banning the import of plastic waste into the continent, with a view to talks for an international agreement against plastic pollution.

Since the beginning of the 2000s, most of the states of sub-Saharan Africa have gradually adopted legislation prohibiting production, import, marketing, use and storage of plastic bags and packaging.

But the laws are routinely flouted or poorly applied.

In a letter to AFP, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said it was "finalising a draft regulation" on harmonising national rules among its 15 members.

However, member states "have not yet agreed... on a deadline for the import of plastics," it admitted.

"There is a lack of commitment from many states in Africa," said John Gakwavu, head of a Rwandan environmental conservation NGO.

Danbadji, of Niger Network, agreed.

"We can't do anything against the proliferation (of plastic waste) because politicians are not really committed to the fight," he said.

- Employment -

But the lack of commitment is not just a question of weak governance.

It is also linked to the economic and social impact of the plastics sector, which is a big employer in several countries.

"I don't think African countries will take exactly the same position" in Nairobi, said Nhlanhla Sibisi of Greenpeace Africa, based in Johannesburg.

South Africa is a case in point.

Around 65,000 people are employed in the synthetics material business in the continent's biggest economy -- a huge plus in a country where 65 percent of young people are unemployed -- and the sector is a major tax contributor.

South African Environment Minister Barbara Creecy recently warned that any international agreement must factor in "differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities."

This formulation is routinely heard at UN climate conferences, when developing countries say they should not be asked to shoulder the same burden as rich ones.

"It will be very difficult for our countries to unite in banning the entry of waste," said Ikobo.

"It is also, for them, a means of bringing in finance, of capital. Hence the importance for us to continue to apply pressure so that we do not sacrifice the future of the continent."

- Sorted imports -

But there are other voices who say that importing plastic waste is acceptable, provided conditions are met.

Richard Kainika, secretary general of the Association of Kenyan Waste Recyclers, said he had "no problem" so long as the waste was "well sorted and classified."

"Recycling supports job creation and also conserves the environment," he said.

Meanwhile, grassroots work on the environment -- something that was absent for so long in Africa -- is picking up.

In some locations, citizens are working to pick up plastic in the streets and on the beaches, and some cautious projects in recycling have started up.

Bright stars include Libreville and Abidjan where, thanks to a collaboration with UNESCO and a Colombian company, a factory for recycling plastic into bricks opened in 2020 with a view to building hundreds of schools in Ivory Coast.

By themselves, these initiatives will not solve the far bigger problem of massive and reckless dumping of plastic.

But they do sow the seeds of awareness, which in turn leads to pressure on governments to act.

Could they be the first small steps that saves the continent from drowning in plastic?

Factfile: Plastic and pollution
Paris (AFP) Feb 26, 2022 - Plastic production and pollution show no signs of letting up, even though solutions that could mitigate the material's harmful environmental impact are emerging.

Here are the key issues, ahead of a UN conference in Nairobi next week that has its sights on a future treaty to curb plastic waste:

- How much plastic does the world produce?

Global plastic production almost doubled between 2000 and 2019, from 234 million tonnes to 460 million tonnes, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Plastic waste more than doubled in that time, reaching 353 million tonnes in 2019.

But global production fell slightly in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic for only the third time in the history of modern industry, according to trade association Plastics Europe.

The other occasions were the 1973 oil crisis and the financial crisis of 2008.

The OECD said 22 million tonnes of plastic were discarded in the environment in 2019 alone, with six million tonnes ending up in waterways, lakes and oceans.

Plastic makes up at least 85 percent of total marine waste, according to the UN Environment Assembly.

The sheer volume of plastic produced annually would weigh as much as 45,500 Eiffel Towers, according to OECD calculations, and annual plastic waste would equal the weight of 35,000 Eiffel Towers.

- Where is plastic produced?

More than half of the plastic came from Asia in 2020, with China representing almost one-third of the global total.

Plastic production in the world's second-largest economy jumped by 82 percent between 2010 and 2020, well above the global growth average of 30 percent, according to a Plastics Europe report.

Europe's production in 2020 was 55 million tonnes, a five-percent fall on 2019 levels.

The growth mostly came from the United States and the Middle East as primary materials there are much cheaper, and from China because its demand is growing more strongly, said Jean-Yves Daclin, Plastics Europe's director general for France.

- What about the future? -

A 2021 report by the World Wildlife Fund estimated that global plastic production would double by 2040.

IFP (French Institute of Petroleum) New Energies, a Paris-based public research organisation, has predicted that production will reach a billion tonnes per year around 2050.

Industry leaders have rejected the figures.

"Taking into account policies decided worldwide to limit the use of single-use plastics, this growth is likely to diminish and production will not double again by 2040," said Daclin.

Recycling is the main solution to halt the relentless march of plastic production.

Although Europe recycles more than one-third of its plastic waste, globally only around nine percent of plastic waste was recycled in 2019, according to the OECD.

NGOs including Zero Waste say recycling is not a silver bullet and advocate using less plastic to reduce global production.

Other solutions they propose include developing packaging-free products, returnable items and eco-friendly designs so that products have "a longer lifespan", said Zero Waste's Juliette Franquet.

UN Environment Programme chief Inger Andersen believes designing products for reuse and recycling and removing dangerous additives could reduce the amount of plastic in the oceans by more than 80 percent by 2040.

The production of virgin plastic could also tumble by 55 percent with these measures, she wrote in The Times newspaper earlier this month.

- Oil-free plastic? -

Plastic made from bio-friendly sources -- such as sugar, starch, corn and wheat -- represents less than one percent of global production.

The use of agricultural land and water resources limits their development as a way of reducing oil consumption in plastic production.

Even worse, these plastics are rarely completely biodegradable or compostable and "in reality only dodge the issue", according to the Heinrich Boell Foundation, an environmental think tank in Germany.

The problem has spurred the development of second- and third-generation plastics sourced from vegetable waste or algae.

In France, start-up Eranova earlier this month organised a demonstration near the southern city of Marseille that transformed algae from a pond into bioplastic granules.

Another promising technique is making plastic from the carbon dioxide belched out into the atmosphere by industry.

Factories have started to emerge, including in Austria, where the company Covestro manufactures polyurethane.

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Plastic treaty would be historic for planet: UNEP chief
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