Plastic Africa

While deep see scientists are discovering micro-plastics at ever greater depths and David Attenborough's Blue Planet 2 is raising awareness on plastic pollution, Africa is a long way off even realizing that plastic is a killer.

I live alongside the average, rural African and I see on a daily basis (whenever I buy a kilo of sugar for example) that they have an extremely high plastic footprint.

Here in Tanzania we have thin black disposable plastic bags in which everything is wrapped up. Wether it is a bar of soap, bread, flour or even a bottle of soda, shop assistants will put everything in these bags which you get for free.

Should you wish to buy a bigger plastic bag, you can do so for 100 Tanzanian shillings (4 EUR cents).

There is no waste disposal system in rural Tanzania (and probably many other African countries) and these bags are carelessly thrown into the street.

When the village litter gets too much, the bags are collected and burned.

Coca cola and Pepsi used to distribute their drinks in reusable glass bottles but have in recent years introduced plastic 'take-away' bottles, obviously with a view to reducing pollution.

Even the Masai, whose traditional diet has changed so much, buy their daily needs in the nearby villages and come back to their bomas with a lot of plastic bags.

These days they want the newest sandals imported from China or mirrors or brushes to clean their bead work and in general items made in China have an extremely high plastic content. These things are also of appaling quality, last only a couple of weeks and are then disposed of in the African bush.


The First world has woken up to the threat plastic poses to our planet. But while heroic efforts are being made by the people as well as large manufacturers, it seems, not a lot of thought is given to Africa, India and other densly populated areas of the world where indigenous education levels are low and where political leaders do not have the forsight to reduce the use of plastics.

The planet is not going to recover unless we make the fight against plastic pollution a global issue.