According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), half of all plastic produced is designed to be used just once and then discarded, resulting in mass amounts of chemically-laden debris landing in oceans and littering landscapes.
As UNEP’s Chief of the Terrestrial Ecosystems Unit Dr. Musonda Mumba points out, this has negative implications not just for physical health but also mental, by contaminating our “ambient environment,” as she described in a discussion with Landscape Voices in Nairobi.
To curb this dangerous trend of increasing waste, more than 10 African governments have begun by banning the production of plastic bags, and others are following suit. Here she describes what efforts are off to a good start in the continent – and how more can be done.
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