The Foundation for Environment and Development, FEDEV, in partnership with the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, ELAW, has drilled the 31 Mayors of the Southwest Region on the dangers of plastic pollution, with the Mayors committing to joining FEDEV’s zero-tolerance campaign against plastic pollution.
This was during a two-day workshop held in Buea on July 17 and 18, 2024.
Titled, “Plastic waste management: laws and policies,” the workshop centred on the legal framework guiding plastic waste disposal in Cameroon and the role of Councils in combating plastic pollution.
The workshop was backed by the Ministry of Environment and Nature Protection, MINEPDED; the Ministry of Decentralisation and Local Development, MINDEVEL; and the United Cities and Councils of Cameroon, UCCC.
Among key resolutions derived at the event was the commitment by Mayors on “zero tolerance” of the use of plastics in their Municipalities.
The Mayors were also resolute that the price of plastics should be made exorbitant; stringent laws enforced on plastic waste management; acquisition of garbage dump sites in Municipalities; setting up waste management committees at village and quarter levels; and that Councils should design and implement waste management plans.
Plastics Crisis
FEDEV’s Executive Director, Barrister Nchunu Justice Sama, said the workshop was necessitated by the plastic pollution “crisis” that is plaguing the world and Cameroon in particular.
Although the country’s laws oblige producers, importers and distributors of plastics to take responsibility for recollecting and recycling them, plastics continue to litter cities, towns and villages, limiting soil productivity, blocking drainage ways and contributing to floods.
Urban areas in Cameroon produce 100,000 tons of plastics yearly, but only 10 percent of this is recycled, according to FEDEV experts. This has left major cities and towns at the mercy of plastics and its devastating consequences.
“Plastics don’t rot. Plastics last a hundred to 200 years,” said Barrister Nchunu Justice, an esteemed environmental lawyer.
“And at times when you think that you don’t find them, they have degenerated into small, particles known as micro-plastics and they find themselves in the air that we breathe and our blood streams; in the food that we eat. So it’s time for us to rethink our activities towards plastics and switch off the plastics tap.”
Barrister Nchunu said it was time for Mayors, who are the champions of local development, to lead the cause of combating plastic pollution, and ensuring Cameroonians’ constitutional right to a healthy environment.
“We discovered that the Councils are not actually doing their work the way the law requires. They are not taking care of the management of plastics, issues of waste sorting and so on. So this workshop was meant to leverage the activities of Councils in waste management generally and particularly in plastics,” he said.
FEDEV’s main partner, ELAW, was represented by human rights lawyer, Olivia Tamon. She said ELAW was “extremely proud” of the work they have done in Cameroon through FEDEV especially the workshop with local authorities.
At the Buea workshop, Mayors were exposed to 10 expert presentations and interactive sessions geared at improving their knowledge on environmental law, government policies, role of local authorities and best practices on plastic waste management in Municipalities.
This was taking place after a similar workshop FEDEV held with Mayors of the Northwest Region last year.
Barrister Nchunu Justice Sama, Founder and Executive Director of FEDEV
The Polluter Pays
The Southwest Regional Delegate for Environment and Nature Protection, Set Ekwadi, who presented on state policies and actions in combating plastic pollution, enjoined local authorities to get the producers of plastics pay for the cost of eradicating them.
This is based on the polluter pays principle enshrined in Article 43(1) of the August 1996 law on environmental waste management in Cameroon.
“I want to empower them [Mayor’s] to understand that the polluter or the producer of plastics… has to pay. So they should be aware because they are just wasting their effort and their resources to manage waste without knowing that other people have to assist them,” he said.
It was also recommended that local authorities should levy high sanitation taxes on business entities, including hospitals, which dump their waste at household waste collection points.
Set Ekwadi noted that the law also prohibits the production, sale and distribution of single-user plastics and has permanently banned plastics with less than 61 microns.
Regrettable, these contraband plastics are flourishing in markets across the country. Mr Ekwadi, who has been Southwest Regional Delegate for over 10 years, attributed the prevalence to smuggling and corruption, and said MINEPDED is doing everything possible to eradicate them.
During interactions at the workshop, Mayors raised lack of finance and inadequate waste disposal equipment as paramount challenges inhibiting their fight against plastic pollaution.
In a presentation on the role of local authorities in managing plastic waste, the Southwest Regional Delegate for Decentralisation, Agbor Teddy Ngeck, said waste management is the prerogative of local authorities, and not the waste collection company, HYSACAM.
Local Councils, he said, are only obliged to collect and dispose household waste, and not industrial, hospital, office waste or waste from construction sites as it commonly obtains.
Regarding financial resources, he revealed that state has commissioned 1 percent of the value of all imported taxable goods to local Councils for waste management. This amounts to several millions of francs yearly.
The Mayor of Limbe I, Mbwaye Eposi Florence, who doubles as Vice President of the UCCC, delivered a presentation that highlighted the need for Councils to mainstream plastic waste management in their development plans.
“[Plastic pollution] is a topic, which is so sensitive, because when you look round our Municipalities, there’s a lot of dirt littering around. And, so, in this seminar, we have learned that we should not leave everything in the hands of HYSACAM,” she said.
Mbwaye Eposi promised to strictly apply the law in her Municipality by getting the polluter to pay the cost of plastic waste management. She also plans to sensitise her population on the health hazards of plastics.
Mayors Pledge To Take Responsibility
Thanks to the workshop, it dawned on many Mayors that they had been violating the law ignorantly by failing to design an environmental waste management plan.
The need for waste sorting was emphasised, with Mayors asked to educate their populations about sorting waste before disposing it.
The Mayor of Konye, Dr Barrister Musima George Lobe, said his first action, upon returning home, will be to design a waste management plan.
“In fact, the workshop has been very enriching because it attends to most of our problems concerning the waste of plastics within the Municipality of Konye,” he said.
“The first thing that we are going to do is to… have a good waste management plan because it is from there that we have to take off if we have to solve most of the problems that are associated with… plastic waste in particular.”
The Mayor of Menji, Prof Nkemasong Nicasius, said he was impacted on the legal framework on waste management and how to effectively deal with plastic pollution. He plans to employ waste pickers to collect plastics around his Municipality and in turn sell them to generate income.
“As I’m leaving from here, I see in plastics more of opportunities of employment and resources for my municipality,” he said.
By Hope Nda
