Recycle plastic

by Trashy Bags

Here in Tamale, most visitors are surprised about the large quantities of plastic that are being used (and wasted). I am talking about rubber bags, the small sachets that are used to transport drinking water, ... At the other hand, plastic bottles and drums are always being re-used. Just as I saw in Mumbai, plastic bottles can even be used as currency. But all these black rubber bags and used water sachets for drinking water are a real pest.

shower curtain

Many people have already been breaking their head whether there isn't a way of reusing these wasted sachets. Mostly I find organisations that try to make handbags from the used sachets (see Global Mamas, psfk and g-lish), somebody made furniture out of plastic bottles and even shinguards. Ivonne, a Dutch volunteer, even made her personal shower curtain as a souvenir for at home.

All these ideas are very cute and a good start, but in my opinion no way near to a large scale solution. I don't believe that you can put up a large scale business in selling bags to tourists or ex-volunteers.

While doing a little online research for this blog entry, I just learn about Blowplast Recycling operative in Accra. They offer ¢1,000.00 cedis for every 1 kilo of waste (used pure water sachets, black polythene bags and other waste plastice). Now that's more like it!
This looks very promising, although I don't think they are talking about the new currency (making it USD 700.00), the old currency (USD 0.07) per kilogram of plastic waste seems more realistic.

More:

• Global Mamas
• Trashy bags, also at African Art Stands
• Blowplast Recycling (Accra)
• Total ban on plastic in Rwanda (BBC 2006, TerraDaily 2011)
• Update: Accidental Recycling (Malawi)
• The world's rubbish dump: a tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan (The Independent)
• Capt. Charles Moore on the seas of plastic (TED talk February 2009)
• Midway (film by Chris Jordan)
• Oceans of garbage
• Compostable vs. recyclable: Which is better? (Packaging Digest)
• Plastic Planet by Rhea Moonen: 1, 2 (in Dutch)
• Ecopragmatism

Update:

• Toronto bans plastic bags from 2013 (The Globe and Mail, June 6 2012)