A 2018 UN Environment Report on single-use plastics showed that the world produces a staggering more than 400 million tonnes of plastics every year. Of this, only a paltry 9 per cent is recycled, with a significant portion of the rest ending up in oceans, lakes or other water bodies where they put marine life in extreme danger, or being buried in soil or washed down drainage channels, leaving environmental havoc in their wake. Experts warned that, if the world does not urgently embrace proper waste management practices, it could end up choking on enormous 12 billion tonnes of plastics strewn across the world’s landscapes. It is this spectre of a global environmental catastrophe that has triggered an unprecedented sense of urgency around the world with environmentalists urging a reversal of destructive practices to help reverse the trend. Indeed, countries around the world have in recent years taken steps toward forging common environmental action, although this has generally often been undermined by contradictory interests of some industrialised economies. Nonetheless, every country must continue to do everything within their means toward checking global warming. That has been the case for Rwanda for close to two decades now. This is the spirit with which the country’s Private Sector Federation (PSF) last week committed to raise nearly Rwf700 million for collection, transportation, disposal and recycling of single-use plastics over the next five years. The announcement came as Rwanda joined the rest of the world to mark the World Environment Day, which falls on June 5. It also comes two years after the country took a bold decision to ban single-use plastics, a move that has left some of the businesses worried. Through the ‘Sustainable Management of Single-Use Plastics Project’, the industry is finally stepping forward to play a greater role in ensuring responsible disposal of the same plastic materials they produce or import. Such public-private partnerships are an invaluable contribution towards attainment of the country’s green targets. The local industry can do much more in this area.
