Tom Vens, European Union (EU) Ambassador to Sierra Leone has called on the government of Sierra Leone to ban single use of plastics in the country, which he said might serve as few steps forward to help curtail climate change in Sierra Leone.
Ambassador Vens made this statement on Friday 4th October 2019 during a one day interactive session on climate change and the role of youth in building a sustainable society, at the British Council Auditorium in Freetown.
The EU Ambassador said plastics is one of the major polluters in Sierra Leone, and that he was once told by Sierra Leone’s Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources that there are more plastics than fish in the Sierra Leonean sea, in which he said has a dramatic impact in the lives of the people, “not only because we are eating that plastics, but because it reduces the production of oxygen that we all depend on.”
“More than 50% of the oxygen in the air is generated from the lives in the Ocean. If we kill the lives in the ocean with plastics, we are killing our own lives,” he maintained.
He said it is high time the government of Sierra Leone take a brave decision to put a ban on the single use of plastics like Kenya did, and that might seem like a difficult decision but alternatives can quickly be put in place to fill the gap.
According to a 2017 survey done by Enviro Solutions limited, ninety (90) tons of plastics are generated every day in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown.
Fifteen (15) years ago, Sierra Leone signed to the Stockholm Convention to eradicate or restrict the use of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) of which plastic is part of. Currently, the country has no policy that regulates the use of plastics.
Tamba Emmanuel Nyaka, Assistant Director Climate Change Secretariat at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the Chief Minister’s Office is presently working on a policy to regulate the use of plastics and that business people that are into plastic dealings have been asked to come forward with a strategy on how to chart the way forward.
