Experts raise the alarm on plastics

Arusha. Dar es Salaam City authorities have been told to institute a total ban on the use of plastic bags amid rising concerns over environmental degradation.

A recent study by the Dar es Salaam-based Environmental Resources Consultancy (ERC) concluded that the only way out of the plastics menace is promoting the use of eco-friendly biodegradable paper bags.

Experts say due to the fact that plastics are difficult to decompose, they have become not only an eyesore in the city, but now posed a major hazard to human health and the environment.

“Plastic bags should be banned and substituted with biodegradable bags,” the ERC consultant noted in their recent study.

Until 2015, the city generated about 5,500 tonnes of plastic waste a month, of which 4,000 tonnes are Plyethlyne terephthalate (PET) and 1,500 tonnes of High density polyethylene (HDPE).

An estimated 90 per cent of PET is recycled by individual waste pickers to produce plastic beverage bottles.

Twenty per cent of the recycled materials from the high density plastic wastes is sold and processed domestically while 80 per cent is exported, mostly to China, India and Indonesia.

But consultants with the environmental resources think tank believe the plastic waste menace can be effectively done away with through a total ban as done in other countries.

The ban, they proposed, should be extended to land filling of discarded plastic materials “and the starting point should involve increasing landfilling tax”.

This is a form of tax applied to increase the cost of dumping ground.