Nabbanja tasks Nema to fund innovators reusing plastics

Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja used yesterday’s World Environment Day to direct the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) to support innovations that involve re-using plastics.
“As I was moving around, I was impressed by the innovations I saw and on behalf of the President through the minister, I direct Nema to take up these innovators and support them,” she said.

She added that funds for this have already been availed to Nema.
Ms Nabbanja said such innovations will enable the world and Uganda in particular beat plastic pollution, which has become one of the world’s greatest environmental problems. 

In response, Ms Naomi Karekaho, the Nema spokesperson, last evening said: “It wasn’t issued as a directive per se, I doubt that it was a directive. It was just something she deemed important since innovation is the best and immediate solution to eliminating plastic pollution. Nema does not have resources to support innovations.

 Innovations are enterprises and they can be funded by green fund loans.” 
In Uganda, the celebrations ran under the theme: “Stop Plastic Pollution Today”.

Speaking at the same event, the executive director of Nema, Dr Barirega Akankwasah, said the world produces 430 million metric tonnes of plastics each year, of which about two-thirds are short-lived products, which soon become waste.

“Research shows that under a business-as-usual scenario, plastics could emit 19 percent of global greenhouse gas GHG emissions allowed under a 1.5°C scenario by 2040, essentially making the goal out of reach,” he said.

 Adding: “Annual social and environmental costs linked to plastic pollution ranges between $300 and 600 billion per year, with some estimates above $1.5 trillion per year.”

According to Dr Barirega, Uganda has produced more than 12,330 metric tonnes of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) plastics since 2018. He added that in Kampala Metropolitan Area, 135,804 tonnes of plastic waste is generated per year.

He said of this, 42 percent is uncollected, 15 percent collected through the value chain approach and 43 percent collected by the service providers. About 21,728 tonnes of plastics is burned and 47,457 tonnes is landfilled/dumped, 27,160 tonnes is retained on land and 13,580 tonnes finds its way into water systems.”

Plastic pollution, he said, has resulted in increased cancers, floods, poor water and air quality, decreased soil fertility, siltation of water bodies, death of livestock, fish and wildlife through ingestion and entanglement and above all, enhanced greenhouse gas emissions. This, the Nema boss said, can only be averted if the people reuse, recycle, reorient, diversify, deal with legacy plastics and stopping further production of single use plastics.

He also warned against eating rolex (chapatti and eggs) and matooke from hot polythene bags, saying they are cancerous. He said microplastics have been detected in human blood as well as in breast milk.

Kampala Central Division MP Muhammad Nsereko called upon the ministry of Education to prioritise curriculum development for environmental courses and subjects. This, he said, will enable them walk the talk.
Likewise, Water and Environment minister Sam Mangusho Cheptoris urged leaders to sensitise people on environmental related challenges.

On wetland loss
The executive director of Nema, Dr Barirega Akankwasah, said the world loses three times more wetlands than forest cover loss despite the valuable uses of wetlands to our lives and that of the planet.

 The world has lost 71 percent of its wetland cover since 1,900 and 87 percent since 1700.» Adding: «In Uganda, wetland cover reduced from 15.6 percent in 1994 to only 8.9 percent in 2019 and we are beginning to see a slight recovery, with the latest assessment indicating that the intact wetland cover has slightly improved to 9.3 percent.»