Joseph Mukasa is visibly a young man in his early twenties. He wakes up every morning to join hundreds of his fellow young people in collecting littered plastic bottles around the Kampala Metropolitan districts of Kampala, and Wakiso in Uganda. The young people pile the bottles into sacks and deliver them to waiting trucks, which then take them to recycling plants. With this heavy plastic pollution problem in their face, the COMESA Competition Commission and the African Consumers movement are working to close lobbying gaps in ensuring consumers voices are included in the global plastic pollution treaty, currently being pushed by the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) to be in place at least by 2024. COMESA and the African Consumers’ movement are particularly interested in having a switch from plastic water bottles to glass bottles, and having strict adherence to recycling by industries still producing plastics. UNEA is the world’s highest-level decision-making body for matters related to the environment, with a universal membership of all 193 Member States. Environmental experts and officials of different consumer protection associations in Africa who spoke to The New Times underscored the need to reduce plastic production, eliminate single-use and short-lived plastic products, and switch to non-plastic substitutes. “We are working closely with COMESA in addressing this problem, because what is evident is that our voices are not heard at the global level in lobbying for issues affecting the lives of our consumers like plastic pollution. Governments all over the world should force industries to recycle the plastics they produce,” said Damien Ndizeye, the Executive Director of the Rwanda Consumer Rights Protection Organisation (ADECOR) Ndizeye says large industries all over the world should have designated disposal places in different communities for those plastics, from where they should be picked for recycling purposes. The third round of fresh negotiations about the treaty took place in Nairobi, Kenya last month, with participants underscoring the urgency of the treaty due to the ongoing global plastic pollution crisis, where approximately 430 million tonnes of plastic are produced annually. “Governments should ban the production of single use plastic products like water bottles, and instead provide incentives like soft loans for Small and Medium enterprises to shift towards production of glass containers,” said Micheal Mungoma, the Director of Programs at Youth Education Network (YED) an organization in Kenya. The first session of the treaty negotiations took place in Punta del Este, Uruguay in December last year, followed by a second session in Paris, France in June this year, and the third in Nairobi, Kenya last month. The fourth session is scheduled to take place in Ottawa, Canada in April next year. Daudi Sumba, the Regional director of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), an international organization that protects nature, said; “We need to think out of the box. Consumers are the ones directly affected by plastic pollution as these are causing deadly diseases like cancer to them. We want the UN to find more ways of how the voices of consumers from the lowest level can be included in these talks,” It is expected that the UN will present a legally binding instrument, which would reflect diverse alternatives to address the full lifecycle of plastics, the design of reusable and recyclable products and materials, and the need for enhanced international collaboration to facilitate access to technology, capacity building and scientific and technical cooperation However, Dr. Willard Mwemba, the Executive Director of the COMESA Competition Commission attributes the low lobbying power of consumer protection associations in Africa to the fragmented manner in which they operate, adding that COMESA is now working with the associations to ensure they all speak with one voice. “Most consumer organizations are a one-man show. There is no leverage because if that one person isn’t there, the whole organization is dead. If we want to be listened to, numbers are important,” Mwemba said. Mwemba pointed out that Africa is second to Asia as dumping sites for plastic garbage by western countries, but that there is no advocacy done against the practice because Consumer organisations aren’t united in action. The COMESA consumer welfare and advocacy division is mandated to enforce part 5 of the COMESA Competition regulations to protect consumers in the COMESA region against unfair trade practices by market actors. Among other functions, the division monitors, identifies, and receives complaints and undertakes investigations on consumer infringements regarding unsafe or defective goods in the market in accordance with articles 31/32 of the regulations, which prohibit persons in trade from supplying goods which do not comply to prescribed consumer product safety and product information standards.
