PHOTO: Peter Ryan
Faizel Patel – 01/09/2021
The director of international development at Nesta Challenges says the three R’s, reduce, reuse and recycle are fundamental components in how people are able to manage plastic waste more effectively across the continent.
Constance Agyeman was speaking to Radio Islam about the role and importance of small businesses initiating new ways to sustain the use waste plastics to make a decent earning.
Agyeman says that because of the growth of particularly single use plastics is soaring, consumer behaviour is changing across the continent.
“It means that we have to have different types of responses to plastic waste. So being able to reuse plastic because we know it’s so hard to biodegrade and so having alterative uses, turning them into different products, reusing them to do other things like plants or things that have long-term uses rather than a single use of a bottle potential is good.”
Agyeman says initiatives such as the Afri-Plastics Challenge Prize are encouraging in getting sub-Saharan African countries to look at solutions actively, not only for revenue generation, but to bring solutions in plastic waste management, solutions underpinned by putting communities and the environment as apex deliverables.
She says recycling plastic can create opportunities for entrepreneurs.
“Just recycling and finding alternative ways of using plastic, can also be a helpful way of creating new business opportunities for particularly women and girls who are in the more informal aspects of the sector.”
Agyeman says encouraging communities and educating them with inspiring campaigns is also part of the Afri-Plastics Challenge.
Listen to the interview with Constance Agyeman
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