Plastics path: From innovation to crisis and need for solutions

James Wakibia, a Nakuru-based environmental and plastic waste activist collects plastic waste from River Ndarugu in Nakuru Town West. [File, Standard]

Before the arrival of plastics, we used to drink tea, porridge, soda, water or even carry liquids or solid items from metallic, clay or glass containers.

However, after production of plastics started in 1900s, most households switched to them.

Items made from plastic have now become a huge challenge not only to human beings but the entire biodiversity.

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) was first polymerised between 1838 to 1872.

A key breakthrough came in 1907, when Belgian-American chemist, Leo Baekeland, created Bakelite, the first real synthetic, mass-produced plastic.

As the years progressed, it became indispensable across industries and now plastics have revolutionised packaging, manufacturing and healthcare.

However, this development has come at a significant cost, as the pervasive issue of plastic pollution emerges as a formidable threat to our planet’s health and wellbeing.

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Plastics are polymers - long chains of molecules made from repeating links called monomers. These are building blocks, which are chemical units capable of linking together through chemical reactions to form larger more complex molecules, often produced from chemicals like petroleum.

Its molecular structure can be engineered to present different characteristics, either to be flexible or solid, transparent or opaque.

Plastics boast a unique and useful set of properties including being durable, strong, lightweight, resistant to corrosion and water, and relatively easy and inexpensive to manufacture.

These could be some of the reasons they are considered practical.

Today, about 400 million tonnes of plastic waste is produced every year.

Without changes to current policies, global plastic waste generation is projected to triple by 2060, to a staggering one billion metric tonnes.

About nine billion tonnes of plastic waste generated globally so far over the years, less than 10 per cent has been recycled. Half of all plastic produced is designed for single-use purposes.

Around the world, one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute and up to five trillion plastic bags are used worldwide annually.

Cigarette butts, whose filters contain tiny plastic fibres, are the most common type of plastic waste found in the environment.

Plastic bottles, wrappers, bottle caps, grocery bags, straws and stirrers are the most common plastic items.

Since 2018, the Break Free from Plastic movement has collected data via brand audits, which has revealed a remarkable consistency of results year after year.

In 2023, they discovered that Coca-Cola has been the world’s top plastic polluter by a significant margin every year since the global brand audit began in 2018.

Coca-Cola on its own produces three million metric tons of plastic packaging each year, equivalent to a terrifying 200,000 plastic bottles per minute.

Unfortunately, that number continues to rise, as it does across many global countries.

Other top ten brands are PepsiCo, Nestle, Danone, Altria, Bakhresa Group, Wings, Unilever, Mayora Indah, Mondelez International, Mars Incorporated, Salim Group and British American Tobacco (BAT).

The top producing countries of plastics in 2023 were China at 60 million tonnes, United States (42 million tonnes), Germany (14 million tonnes), India (15 million tonnes), Japan (12 million tonnes). These countries are responsible for 50 per cent of global plastic production.

The study also found that over 50 per cent of plastic items were unbranded, highlighting the need for better transparency about production and labeling of plastic products and packaging to enhance traceability and accountability.

The survey also proposed two solutions to this, including creation of an international, open-access database into which companies are obliged to quantitatively track and report their products, packaging, brands and releases to the environment.

Another one is the need to develop international standards around the branding of packaging to facilitate their identification.

On the way forward, it recommends corporate producers of plastic waste to reduce plastics in their products and avoid regrettable alternatives.

This is particularly by four ways including phasing out nonessential and avoidable single-use products and safe and sustainable product designs that cut global demand for new products while increasing reusability, repairability and recyclability.

It also proposes investing in non-plastic alternatives with proven better safety and environmental profiles; and supporting alternative distribution models like refill-reuse, which lessen pollution.

According to Gerance Mutwol, an environmental scientist and plastics campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, the solution to dealing with plastic pollution is two way; producer and consumer responsibility with producer bearing huge role.

“Plastics are the only product that do not follow the law of demand and supply but just supply and supply. Producers should therefore reduce production of plastics by 75 per cent by 2040, considering environment and focus on planet instead of profits, because without planet, there cannot be production,” says Mutwol.

Grenpeace recently organized the Climate Justice Camp in Arusha, Tanzania. “The 25 per cent will be one-time use items including TVs, computers, phones among others,” Mutwol adds.

On alternatives, he says there are many alternatives to plastics and even raw materials.

“We should not give multinationals right to make rules for all of us, but, as Africa, we should come up with solutions locally in terms of alternatives to plastics. For instance, we can have a wooden or metallic straw, non-disposable water bottles that you can be travelling with and just refills at water points instead of buying water in plastic bottles which you will later throw away,” says Mutwol.

He also calls for immediate phase-out of instance sachets, saying they can be replaced by aluminum paper because they are very small and do not compose quickly.

He says with water dispensers everywhere in the country, people can easily carry their non-single use plastic water bottles to refill.

Mutwol blamed soda manufacturers for lack of a return policy on their plastic bottles.

“When you look on the companies’ plastic bottles, it is written “Recycle Me”, while on the glass bottle, it is written, “Return Me”, this means that they are avoiding the responsibility of recycling their bottles, but giving the consumer of their soft drinks a burden to recycle the bottle yet they have no ability to do that,” he said.

According to Hadiah, a climate activist from Egypt, there is need to go back to the culture of many alternatives.

“Before innovation in plastics, we used to store water in clay containers. We can still go back there and avoid plastics,” she said.

Since 2018, several African countries have curbed plastic bags including Zanzibar in Tanzania - which imposed a levy - South Africa, Mali, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Botswana, Uganda, Rwanda, Morocco, Zimbabwe, Benin, Senegal, Nigeria in Lagos.

In 2017, Kenya banned single-use plastic bags and later followed this by outlawing plastic bottles in protected areas - including national parks, beaches and forests.

For Isaac Ndirangu, there is need for a tracker on implementation of plastic treaties.

“I think we need a tracker on all policies and all the discussions going around on plastic pollutions because many of these policies are being discussed at national, regional and global level at Conference of Parties(COP) but not getting implemented,” says Ndirangu.