The impact of waste plastics on environment in Mogadishu—Somalia

  The impact of waste plastics on environment in Mogadishu—Somalia   

Introduction

This chapter relates to the introduction of the study. It consists of the background of the study, problem statement, objectives of the study, research questions, significance of the study, the scope of the study, operational definitions of key terms, and conceptual framework of the study.

According to (Burns, 1907) Plastic is a word that originally meant “pliable and easily shaped.” It only recently became a name for a category of materials called polymers. The word polymer means “of many parts,” and polymers are made of long chains of molecules. Polymers abound in nature. Cellulose, the material that makes up the cell walls of plants, is a very common natural polymer.   

 Thousands of plastic factories are producing tons of plastic bags which are very popularly used by people for shopping purposes because of their ease,  cheapness, and convenience of use but their very hazardous negative impact is never highlighted or, at the very least, openly discussed in a more serious tone. The situation is worsened in Yemen as an economically disadvantaged country.  Many countries have banned plastic bags due to public concern over the serious negative impact on the environment and agriculture, especially, in agricultural countries, such as Yemen, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, South Africa, etc. In this research paper, we surveyed the field for the city of Sana'a and recorded where about of those plastic bags accumulated. The number of factories producing plastic bags and discuss the causes and effects and reviewed a range of solutions for a clean environment for us and our future generations. The isolated microbial strains were identified based on their cultural morphological and biochemical study.(Almaqtari & Activities, 2014).

For a long time, countries all over the world are using plastic as an accidental innovation in hydrocarbons. Plastic bags were first manufactured in the 1970s (Williamson, 2003) and their use went on increasing day by day (Mahmood et al., 2020). In the last quarter of the 20th century, an enormous amount of products were created using plastics (Sugii, 2008). At first, it looked like a convenient, cheap, flexible, and long-lasting resource ranging from the production of electric appliances body to single sheet plastic bags. Most of these bags are being disposed of as waste after single-time usage (Moharam & Maqtari, 2014). The United States petrochemical industries first presented and encouraged the production of plastic bags, followed by Western Europe and then to the whole world (Clapp & Swanston, 2009). At the start, it looked like users were unaware of its harmful effects (V & HR, 2011), they continued its use as a comfortable and affordable material (Adane & Muleta, 2011). Plastic production companies might be aware of the harmful environmental effects of plastic but like some of the other technological innovations (Mulder, 2013), nobody told the hazardous effects of this innovation until the substantial consequences were observed by the environmentalists and masses (Imran & Abbas, 2020). People are used to it because of which it has become a challenge to stop the people from its use and provide them with some alternate options. (Ahsan et al., 2020). 

Globally, in the USA, local governments have the primary responsibility to manage MSW. However, local governments lack the authority to explicitly shift costs or responsibility back onto the producer for specific problem wastes. A particularly problematic waste for local governments is the single-use plastic bag. In 2014, in the USA, 103.465 billion single-use plastic shopping bags were consumed. Because of their extremely low recyclability rate, plastic bags remain a significant source of land-based litter and marine debris and impair storm water systems. They also reduce the effectiveness of automated recycling systems. In response, local governments increasingly have adopted a variety of measures specifically intended to reduce the store-level consumption of single-use shopping bags in 5 major categories: bans, imposition of fees and taxes, establishing minimum product design of bags, requiring consumer education, and mandating retailer take-back programs (Travis P. Wagner, December 2017).

As of September 2017, there were 271 local governments in the USA with plastic bag ordinances covering 9.7% of the nation’s population. The majority (95%) of the ordinances is a ban on single-use plastic bags; 56.9% of these bans also include a mandatory fee on paper and/or reusable bags. For the fee-based ordinances, the mode is $0.10 per bag; every tax/fee ordinance allows retailers to retain some or all the collected fee. As local governments continue to increase their actions on plastic bags, 11 states have enacted laws to prohibit local governments from regulating single-use plastic bags. Because of the success of single-use bags, local governments are also enacting similar ordinances on single-use expanded polystyrene consumer products and other single-use plastic products (Travis P. Wagner, December 2017).

In Malaysia, According to a study in the academic journal Science, Malaysia is the eighth-worst country worldwide for plastic waste. It is estimated that Malaysia produced almost one million tons of mismanaged plastic waste in 2010, of which 0.14 to 0.37 million tons may have washed into the oceans.

Malaysia seriously has a huge problem with plastic waste. We often see empty plastic cups, plastic straws, plastic lids, and empty water bottles on the roadsides, seashores and dumpsites. Plastic waste is a serious environmental threat. It is composed of major toxic pollutants and has the potential to cause great harm to the environment in the form of air, water, and land pollution (Nur Imani Abdullah, June 2018).

Regionally, Nigerians constantly use plastic bags locally known as polybags or nylon bags daily for consumer goods and even for the packaging of food items. The ubiquitous choice of plastic bags is partly because of the lack of available alternatives like paper bags and, jute bags which can offer consumers some sort of reliability as plastic bags. This constant consumption of plastic bags in Nigeria along with single-uses, indiscriminate littering, lack of reliable alternatives and poor waste disposal systems results in negative environmental impacts like the known yearly flooding resulting from blocked drainages across the city of Lagos. Plastic bags1 have become popular because of their affordability, lightweight and durability making them handy and easy to use. Plastics are also known for their suitability for various applications in products and different properties leading to rapid consumption when compared to other man-made materials (Xu, et al., 2020) (Paletta, et al., 2019) (Geyer, et al., 2017). Central to this ubiquitous choice of constant use of plastic bags are the social norms such as requesting a free plastic bag and receiving for free after every purchase at local supermarkets, open markets or even taking delivery from online shopping in many parts of Nigeria. (Aligbe, 2021).

In Kenya, Plastic waste is one of Nairobi’s and to a greater extent Kenya’s most visible environmental problems, with most of the flooding witnessed in cities attributed to plastic waste that clogs drainage systems, key among them are plastic carrier bags. These are lightweight non-biodegradable materials that take ages to decompose. They reduce the aesthetic value of both the natural and physical environment and have since proven to have negative impacts on marine life, livestock and human beings. It is estimated that in their lifetime, livestock ingest an average of 2.5 kg’s of plastics and this has been attributed to losses in the meat industry. UNEP (2018) reports that between 60 to 80% of waste in the oceans is made of plastics. Also, about 275 metric tons of waste generated across 192 coastal countries is made of plastics. Plastic waste generated continued to significantly increase. In 2015, it is estimated that 300 million tons of plastic waste were generated. These worrying statistics have gotten the attention of most governments. According to UNEP, at least 60 nations have banned single-use plastics while others have employed measures that include market-based approaches (levies/tax) public-private ate agreements to help reduce the consumption of the material. (Geoffrey & Mutune, 2020).

Locally, a survey have conducted to assess usage of plastic bags and their environmental impacts in Mogadishu City of Somalia. It was used to collect data from 271 randomly selected respondents. The results indicated that a larger proportion (176, 76.52%) of the respondents used plastic bags more frequently than any other plastic products regardless of their age, occupation, and economic and educational status. Low price (159, 69.13%) and easy availability (152, 66.08%) were the main reasons for the widespread utilization of these products. Among the practices used for disposal of plastic bag wastes, open dumping to surrounding areas (137, 59.56%) was a practice widely used by almost all the residents of the city. Some of the major problems were animal death (167, 72.60%), blockage of sewage lines (162, 70.43%), deterioration of natural beauty of an environment (144, 62.60%) and human health problems (119, 51.73%). The findings of the present study also indicated that the trend of utilization of plastic bags is increasing from time to time in spite of a good deal of awareness of the residents about the adverse effects of these products. In order to reduce the problems associated with plastic bag waste, it is recommended to educate the public (1) not to use plastic bags, and (2) to use eco-friendly alternative materials (bags) made from clothes, natural fibers, and paper. City-level legislation is also highly recommended against indiscriminate use and disposal of plastic bag wastes as well as to end the free distribution of plastic bags by retailers. (Abdirashid & Isak, 2021).

Problem statement

Over a decade plastic bags have been used by customers as the major component used for carrying goods both in urban and rural areas. This was attributed to the fact that; they were cheap and accessible to the majority of the people and it was perceived as a source of their livelihood. However, plastic materials have been claimed from different parts of the world that despite the potential they offer has significant impacts both on households and national levels in terms both economically, socially, and the environment. However, most of the available literature has focused on the extent of the production of plastic bags and the impacts of plastic materials on water resources.

Wastes from plastic bags poses serious environmental danger to human and animal health. The major impact of plastic on the environment is that it takes many years to for them to decompose. In addition, toxic substances are released into the soil when plastic bags perish under sunlight and, if plastic are burned, they release a toxic substance into the air causing ambient air pollution.

Although many studies related to the problem under investigation have been conducted in many parts of the world, however, there is a gap in the study area. Therefore, this study is aimed to bridge this gap and find out the impact of plastic bags on the environment in Mogadishu, Somalia.

 ..................................................... By Hoshow Guuled........................................