Treaty against plastic pollution: African civil society actors express their expectations

From May 29 to June 2, 2023, representatives from 175 countries meet in Paris, for the second session of negotiations on a future global treaty against plastic pollution. African civil society actors express their expectations during this meeting.

May 30, 2023 was the second day of international negotiations in Paris for a binding treaty against plastic pollution. "There's no time to lose ", insisted French President Emmanuel Macron at the opening of this UN-sponsored conference the day before.

This meeting brings together numerous players from African civil society. On May 29, they sounded the alarm about the threat posed by plastic pollution to ecosystems and human beings.

From Congo to Cameroon, via Liberia and Nigeria, civil society players came together to call for action to put an end to this form of pollution, particularly in the marine environment.

"With plastic waste, we can do many things".

Plastic pollution can be found in all our oceans and rivers," Youbou Daldy, a member of the Congolese Association for Sustainable Development, told Christina Okello. Plastic pollution leads to the destruction of species such as fish. In the long run, this will lead to the disappearance of species and biodiversity in the marine environment. So it's up to all of us here to support our States so that our children can see certain species that we would have preserved today ".

In Cameroon, plastic waste clogs drainage systems and often causes flooding. Rather than suffer, Ghislain Kwayeb Mbiada, from the NGO Jeunes en action pour le développement, wants to turn this challenge into an opportunity. With plastic waste, we can produce biogas, paving stones to put on the ground," he stresses. We can produce a lot of things. Now we have to excel in training young people to transform this plastic waste, and that can generate jobs for our country's young people.

Negotiations in Paris should result in a text encompassing the entire plastic production chain, with binding measures. On Monday, the United States indicated that it wanted a text that did not " demonize " this material.

Source: www.rfi.fr/