To get rid of the plastic waste in our environment in developing countries like Nigeria, all what we need to do is to add value to used plastic packaging, not banning it. The government needs to promulgate laws that force manufacturers who use plastic packaging to add a separate monetary value to the plastic they use to package their products and to label the plastic types based on what they are made of (polycarbonate, polyethylene, polyethyleneterephthalate etc). The manufacturers in turn then only issue out product when the value for the packaging material has been paid for or similar empty materials are brought for exchange by the wholesalers and retailers. The wholesalers and retailers then serve as designated collection points of the piecemeal plastics after use by the final consumers and then close the recycling loop.
One of the major environmental problems of the 20th century has been the pollution of our environment with plastic and plastic components. The world’s dependence on single-use plastics has been a major contributor to the number of plastics that get into our environment. In developed countries like Germany, there have been well-designed policies that make outlets sell many of the products packaged in single-use plastics at a cost where there is a chance to get some of the costs spent on acquiring such products back when the plastic packaging is returned to designated collection points, many of which are in the form of automated machines. As beautiful as this system is, the financial implication in low- and middle-income countries and the understanding or interest of the governing bodies in such countries in policies towards the reduction of plastics in our environment makes the adaptability of this “German” system difficult.
However, in Nigeria for example, we have had a lifelong tradition of returning drinks glass bottles and crates and we had created a value chain around those packaging materials since the introduction of bottled drinks in the country. We had successfully run this programme for decades without the need for enabling government policies or expensive machineries. The system is very easy and culturally accepted all over the country for decades. The bottling company or the producer of the drink sell their products in bottles and crates and while supplying to wholesalers, they place a premium on the bottles and crates that the drinks were sold in, so the wholesalers have the option to either pay in cash for the said packages to the bottling company or they give the bottling company equal amounts of empty bottles and crates of the brand they want to buy in a bottle/crate exchange format. The same principle is passed down when conducting business between wholesalers and retailers or small shopowners. For the final consumers, when purchasing drinks in piecemeal, they have to either bring their own empty bottles for bottle exchange or leave some money deposits with the retailers, as collateral to ensure they bring back the bottles after they had used its content.
It is time we introduced this system to plastic bottles in Nigeria. This is one of our best fitting options as we do not have the infrastructure and the financial resources to use the solutions from the West like the automated bottle collection machines in Germany. For this to work, we need to have a functional framework of how to tackle this menace;
When we decide to go in the way of glass bottle return model as I have been campaigning for, the first limiting factor is the value on plastic itself. Plastic waste is truly useless in Nigeria and we only use them for things that are actually harmful to our health. For example, using used single-use plastic bottles for water and locally made drinks storage in our fridge has been shown to be detrimental to our health as they leach chemicals and microplastics when reused too often. All these chemicals are known to cause kidney problems and cancers.Adding a premium to the plastic packaging is the major solution to this problem. This way, we create a value for plastic outside of its nominal market value and therefore, encouraging the return of such plastics for cash, to places where it could be properly managed. The other advantage of this model is its scalability, as this will create a secondary market for plastics where individuals can easily have outfits where they collect such plastics at a bargain and make profit when the plastic is returned to the final collection point (in this case, the manufacturers who use plastic packaging).
One demographic that stands to gain in this model are the supermarkets and convenience stores. They are strategically placed already to serve as collection points for these plastics and issue shopping vouchers to people who return plastics to them. The people can then in turn use the shopping vouchers to buy goods and services in the stores where they are issued whenever they need things from the store. This playbook allows the convenience stores and supermarkets to widen their market target and reach customers that might not be in their radar, for example, poor customers in Nigeria who thought the clean supermarkets are not for people like them. For the poor customers who gather and return plastic bottles too, the value added to plastic allow them to have more purchasing power in this supermarket – convenience stores playbook, allowing them to buy in bulk and save cost.
For the scavenger pickup and pay model, companies like We cyclers have done beautifully well in this space. Unfortunately, there are limiting factors in this model. One of such limiting factors is that there are more plastic users in any given environment than the people who are billed to pick them up. Therefore, a lot of those plastics will never be picked and therefore lost in the recycling loop. Secondly, with this model, the value of the plastic is directly dependent on the value of plastic in used plastic primary market, which unfortunately is not as high as in the case of metals or glass. For the business to be profitable, the money paid for every kilogram of plastic must be below the actual value of the plastic in the market. This is a major problem and hinders the scalability of businesses running on this model. The other source of revenue for this model will be good will from the major contributors of this plastic wastes, like the soft drinks company. Getting cash and/or souvenirs from them to pass down to the scavengers will go a long way to make the scavenging more enticing but it is rather not so scalable.
For automated collection point, I have already explained that we do not have the infrastructure yet. Infrastructures needed for this model to work will include among others, the machines that could collect such plastics and recognize the right products to collect and issue funds or vouchers equal to the value of plastics collected, the electricity to run such machines, the security to ensure the machines are not tampered with and the education to make sure everyone could use and interact with such machines. However, the beauty about this model is that it could be plugged into the other models. For example, supermarkets who are collecting plastics might invest in the machine, allowing for people to return plastics and receive their vouchers without any human interface through such machines and at speed.
Therefore, what we need right now, is to start the lobbying already at our national and state assemblies, so we could push for the policies ensuring we start this as soon as possible. To start discussions with the manufacturers and traders, for them to see why they need to do this and of course, to discuss with the populace and let them see all the opportunities they are to get when this is functioning in our communities.
Abdulsalam, a researcher at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany, can be reached by email via [email protected]
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