In\u00a0Uganda,\u00a0plastic pollution\u00a0is a growing problem.<\/p>\n
Despite repeated plastic bans since\u00a02009, there are no signs the use of this material is decreasing.<\/p>\n
According to the Ugandan environmental authorities, over half of all plastic waste ends up in open land, waterways, lakes or parks.<\/p>\n
The founder of this plastic recycling company said that Uganda needs to recycle more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is really too big that even the recycling rate in Uganda is only 1%. There are no solutions that can solve plastic, and yet we have a lot of companies that produce plastic, but we have few companies that recycle plastic or give plastic a second life\u201d, said\u00a0Shamim Naluyima, founder of\u00a0Edu-Plastics.<\/p>\n
Naluyima\u00a0started her company to\u00a0remove\u00a0plastic waste from the environment.<\/p>\n
Her workers wash, dry and iron plastic bags before they’re sewn into school bags.\u00a0The school bags’ labels read: “By owning me, you have helped in upcycling\u00a015\u00a0plastic bags.”<\/p>\n
\u201c…so after that, we then we bring it to our first production centre, where we fuse the plastic to come up with a sustainable material like this one, so this is a material that we later cut and then come up with the bags, which bags later, such as bags like this. So this is our school bag. It’s waterproof, it\u2019s durable, it\u2019s sustainable, and it is locally handmade\u201d, added\u00a0Shamim Naluyima.<\/p>\n
Besides bags, the company also manufactures\u00a0learning materials, such as letters, numbers, rulers and other resources for schools in rural\u00a0Uganda.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they go back to their homes, they say ‘no, mommy, daddy, let us not throw everywhere these plastic things, because they are really good. Look at the bag I am having.’ It is so nice to the extent that they are going to spread the message to their parents, not to litter everywhere with plastic”, said Kyaffe Junior School teacher,\u00a0Florence Namukasa.<\/p>\n
According to the\u00a0Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)\u00a0plastic waste is set to almost treble by\u00a02060\u00a0with about half ending up in landfill and under a fifth recycled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In\u00a0Uganda,\u00a0plastic pollution\u00a0is a growing problem. Despite repeated plastic bans since\u00a02009, there are no signs the use of this material is decreasing. According to the Ugandan environmental authorities, over half of all plastic waste ends up in open land, waterways, lakes or parks. The founder of this plastic recycling company said that Uganda needs to recycle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8777,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Africa News","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,29],"tags":[1303,1302,1304,132],"class_list":["post-8776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","category-east-africa","tag-oecd","tag-organization-for-economic-cooperation-and-development","tag-plastic-waste","tag-uganda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}