Network to govern plastics pollution in Africa

The Governing Plastics Network is supposed to bring researchers and other key stakeholders in the plastics industry from the UK and other developing countries together under a network to the much needed step to tackle the problem of plastics pollution in Eastern Africa and other DAC-list developing countries.

Plastics play a key role in every sector of our lives for instance in packaging products, preserving food, construction, in the transportation and textile industries, electronics and in industrial machines amongst others. However, plastics waste constitutes 9% of solid waste in major cities of Eastern Africa and is forecasted to grow to around 13% of municipal waste in sub-Saharan Africa by 2025. In as much as most countries in Africa have banned single use plastics, environmentally friendly end of life management of plastics is still at its infancy in most countries in Africa.

The lack of adequate human, financial and technological resources, a poor organization of operational processes, and tendency for political elites in national and sub-national governments to pass self-serving laws that inhibit innovative solutions makes it hard to address the problem of plastics. Hence most end up with other solid wastes in landfills with a small proportion on post-consumer recycling.

The Governing Plastics Network, which comprises two linked international projects led by the University of Surrey and the University of Nairobi, will identify drivers and pressures of plastics pollution; attitudes; impacts and the mitigation of those impacts; and innovative and new governance forms, and provide requisite evidence to support policy changes in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Nicholas Oguge, co-lead of the project and Professor of Environmental Policy at the University of Nairobi said “The Governing Plastics Network is about understanding how the messages about plastics resonate globally – particularly for countries in East Africa. We want to understand what are the drivers for reducing plastic pollution in those nations, what are people’s attitudes towards recycling and, ultimately, what can be done to help reduce waste.”

Rosalind Malcolm, co-lead of the Governing Plastics Network and Professor of Law at the University of Surrey, said: “The story about plastics has dramatically shifted over the past 50 years, driven by people finally understanding the damage plastic waste has on our planet. We need to turn that understanding into a body of rules which ensures that plastics do not continue to degrade the environment hurting wildlife and polluting the oceans.”

For more information visit: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/surrey-centre-international-and-environmental-law/governing-plastics-network/plastics-pollution-governance-framework-network-project

For news and updates, the Governing Plastics Network can be followed on Twitter @plasticsgov and Facebook - "plasticsgov"

The Global Plastic Network comprises two international projects:

The Plastics Pollution Governance Framework Network Project is a Global Engagement Network funded by the UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund. The project's goal is to share knowledge and expertise around plastics governance approaches in developing countries to reduce environmental pollution by reducing, reusing, recycling and recovering waste material, thereby retaining them in the value chain for longer.

The Wicked Problem of Plastics and the Discourse Surrounding its Governance is funded by the UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund through the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This project seeks to improve how we use and dispose of plastics by looking at how we talk about plastics. It examines how local and national governments and organisations frame written, visual and verbal communication about plastics and asks how this can be translated into behaviour change and activism that leads to better laws and more effective governance. The project investigates these discourses to learn how the “plastics story” is told in different countries and how this influences consumers, activists, regulators and other key decision-makers.