Mozambique annually discards 100,000 tonnes of plastic

The Mozambican Minister of Land and Environment, Ivete Maibaze, revealed on Monday that 100,000 tonnes of plastic waste are annually discarded into the environment, jeopardising the country’s rivers and oceans.

Maibaze, who was speaking in Maputo, during the Validation Seminar of the Study on the Socio-Economic Impact of a Plastic Bag Ban, said “of this amount of plastic waste, 17,000 tonnes go into rivers and oceans.”

The polymers used in the production of disposable plastics, she explained, are not biodegradable and, on average, only begin to decompose after 500 years and take up considerable space in the environment, landfills and waterways.

“This may cause health risks due to contamination of hot food and drinks packaged in these plastics that may contain chemicals such as Benzene and Stellin. This data awakens us to the urgency for more work in a context of joint efforts between various stakeholders″, she said.

The minister, citing 2018 data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, stated that in Mozambique the average plastic waste produced is 6.1 kg per capita per year, a level far below the world average of 29 kg per capita per year.

″However, Mozambique's waste collection rate is 30 percent and all collected plastic waste is improperly disposed of in open dumpsites, and only a small amount is recycled″, the minister explained.

Maibaze also said that the negative impacts caused by the proliferation of plastic bags include the clogging of drainage ditches, urban flooding, the emergence of diseases, and the loss of marine and terrestrial fauna.

“The burning of plastic causes air pollution through the emission of gases that, when inhaled, are harmful to human health and to other living beings”, she stressed.

For his part, the conservation manager at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Mozambique, Rodrigo Fernandez, stated that in 1990 the world production of plastic was 150 million tons per year and today, 32 years later, there are 308 million tons per year, and only 75 percent of all plastic produced throughout history is recyclable.

″We are talking about 6,200 million tons of plastic waste. And it is estimated that one-third of the plastic produced annually reaches nature as pollution, in the specific case of the oceans where there are about 150 million tons accumulated in the marine environment″, he said.

He noted that the absence of a systemic and effective response to this problem threatens economic and sustainable growth and has direct consequences on the environment, wildlife species and people.

'We, therefore, call on all governments to set national targets for plastic reduction, recycling and management and to adopt legal and appropriate instruments to encourage innovation and viable alternatives to plastics”, Fernandez said.

Mozambique has already taken some steps in this direction. A law of 2015 banned the use of ultra-thin (less than 30 micrometres) plastic bags, with a few exceptions. Shops were banned from distributing free plastic bags to their customers. When shoppers had to pay for their plastic bags, they tended to use them more than once, and, in the best cases, opted for bags made of other materials.