The 31 mayors of the South West Region met in the regional headquarters of Buea on July 17 and 18, 2024, for a workshop on plastic pollution, during which they called for more stringent application of laws on plastic pollution.
The workshop that also brought together the Regional Delegates of Environment and Local Development, was organised by the Foundation for Environment and Development (FEDEV), a Cameroonian NGO that focuses on environmental law.
One of FEDEV’s resource persons revealed that Urban areas in Cameroon generate over 100,000 tons of plastics yearly but only 10 percent of this quantity is recycled, according to environment experts.
Although the August 1996 law on waste management mandates plastic producers and waste generators to eliminate or recycle it, municipal Councils, in reality, tend to bear the burden and blame for all waste management mishaps.
The Mayor of Konye in Meme Division, Dr Musima George Lobe, acknowledged that plastics now pose a threat to agriculture, health, and the soil in Konye, a primarily agricultural municipality.
“In Konye, we have a lot of people who use no biodegradable materials in their day-to-day activities, and most of this material ends up around the streets and the farms in the compounds in the gutters or whatever,” he said.
Mayors in the South West attributed rampant plastic pollution to the loose implementation of environmental laws; lack of awareness among the population; insufficient waste collection equipment; and lack of financial resources for waste management.
In one of their resolutions, they agreed on a “zero tolerance” policy for the use of plastics in their municipalities, with many of them pledging to draw up a waste management plan in the days ahead.
The Mayor of Menji in Lebialem, Prof Nkemasong Nicasius, said he will involve youths in his community to tackle plastic pollution.
This will include employing waste pickers to collect plastics in the municipality so that they don’t accumulate.
He will in turn sell them to plastic recyclers and generate some income for the municipality.
In Konye, Mayor Musima George said his first action will be to draw up a waste management plan. He learned about the plan, which is mandated by the law for every municipality, during the Buea workshop.
The CEO of Fedev, Barrister Nchunu Justice, traced the necessity of the workshop, enumerating recent environmental disasters linked to plastic pollution.
“We have plastics everywhere, and the impact is so huge. Plastic pollution, impacts human life, biodiversity, marine aquatic organisms, the entire ecology,” Barrister Nchunu said.
He continued: “And when you look at the rate of floods, now the recurrence of floods in our cities, like in Limbe, in Douala, in Yaounde. Much of that is being caused by the fact that plastics have blocked the waterways.”
He emphasized the polluter pays principle, which obliges producers of plastics to bear the responsibility of disposing of them.
