Senegal/More than 500 bags and fragments of plastic bags collected on Virage beach in Yoff
More than 500 bags and fragments of plastic bags, 187 cigarette butts, 170 bags of water and over a hundred plastic bottles were collected on Monday on the Virage beach in Dakar, on the initiative of the Association Zéro Déchet Sénégal (AZDS).
"The most common types of waste found on the beach are plastic bags and fragments of plastic bags, followed by water bags, cigarette butts, plastic bottles and food packaging", said Abdoulaye Sène, head of the association's training and awareness department.
The waste was collected during a clean-up and characterization operation organized as part of the "Village des solutions: waste, water quality, innovation and civic commitment in Senegal".
The initiative was launched by the Délégation générale du Québec à Dakar, in partnership with AZDS, Surfrider Foundation Sénégal and Ingénieurs Sans Frontières Québec.
Its aim was to highlight concrete solutions to plastic pollution and the degradation of coastal ecosystems.
According to Mr. Sène, "waste characterization made it possible not only to quantify the waste collected, but also to identify the categories most present in order to better guide awareness-raising and advocacy actions."
"Most of this waste is single-use products. When they end up in the sea, they represent a direct threat to marine biodiversity and fishery resources," he warned.
He stressed that these results confirm the observations made as part of the "Plage Zéro Déchet" initiativeinitiative, which he said had already enabled similar operations to be carried out on a dozen Senegalese beaches since the beginning of the year.
Faced with this situation, the Association Zéro Déchet Sénégal is calling for the effective application of the law on single-use plastics, adopted in 2020.
"A significant proportion of the waste found is made up of products already covered by this regulation. It is therefore necessary to accelerate its application and to promote reusable alternatives to the population", the association leader argued.
Source: aps.sn/
