How companies are contributing Plastic wastes in East Africa
By TOP AFRICA NEWS Reporter
The available data has shown that Coca Cola is the first company that is contributing Plastic Wastes in East African Countries followed by Bakhresa Group which is a large group based in Tanzania. Third is Metro group also based in Tanzania while Fourth is Trade Kings, which is an industrial combine based in Zambia.
According to Cameron Smith, Founder at Unwaste.io, beverage is still having the lion’s share of the contribution to discarded liquid containers in the region.
Presenting the Plastic wastes data on Wednesday, during an event organized by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) Rwanda to launch the Plastic Waste web portal, Mr. Smith explained that when you look at brand ownership, Coca Cola is the biggest contributor of plastic waste in the region.
He said “Not surprisingly, Coca Cola is the leader because it’s the only company that produces and sells plastic in every one of the markets.”
He continued saying that “although Coca Cola, which is a company based outside of the continent of Africa, is the lead contributor, the other main contributors out of the top 10 are all companies, almost all companies based in the region, which means it should be fairly easy to talk to them, particularly in countries of the East African Community, and get them to adopt a more environmentally holistic attitude to the treatment of their plant waste that they essentially produce.”
He also revealed that when you move to Rwanda, you will find that Bakhresa Group is number one producer of plastic waste in Rwanda while the third one is a local company that was not named during his presentation.
However, Coca Cola in Rwanda is in fourth place.
“So, what would be really interesting is to do an outreach effort, ….and those producers at least to profess that they’re taking measures to reduce their plastic impact, you would hope to see that their market share of the pollution starts to decrease every month.” Advised Mr. Smith
In the meantime, the UK is supporting Rwanda to design through the UK’s manufacturing Africa programme a scheme that will see a polluter paying whenever the company puts plastic packaging on the market.
READ ALSO: Rwanda Launches Plastic Wastes-Web portal to ease access to wastes data and Wastes Market
Anna Wilson, the Development Director at the British High Commission in Kigali said that “By providing these better data on plastics, this will also help with the implementation of an extended producer responsibility (EPR) scheme, which the UK is supporting Rwanda to design through the UK’s manufacturing Africa programme.”
The EPR schemes are based on a polluter pays principle where companies put plastic packaging on the market and pay a fee, which will go towards waste collection, sorting and recycling and this scheme builds on existing regulations as well as a pilot project that Rwanda leads with the private sector federation.
Returning to the Wastes data, it is shown that 4% comes from the food sector, about 3% comes from household and personal care, which is things like cleaning products, Moisturising Cream, hand washing products, etc.
There is also about 18%, which is not recorded, that means that the waste was recorded, but nobody has yet gone through to match that waste to a particular industry sector.
