By Linda Mujuru, GPJ Zimbabwe
At Mbare
marketplace, a major trading hub in Zimbabwe, plastic bags are everywhere.
Vendors stack them at the ready for customers, who tote their purchases home
and often discard the bags after a single use.
Many of these
plastic bags are either imported from China or sold by local Chinese companies,
and fail to meet Zimbabwe’s standards for plastic packaging.
“We know this
type of plastic isn’t allowed, but we sell it anyway. It’s cheaper, and there
is a huge demand for it in the market,” says Tichaona, a local plastic bag
vendor who sources his bags from a Chinese company in Harare. He provided only
his first name for fear of arrest.
In some cases,
plastic bag buyers don’t even know that the bags are thinner than is legal,
says one employee at Colour Maximal, a Chinese-owned plastic manufacturing
company in Harare, who asked Global Press Journal to protect his identity for
fear of losing his job.
“We know what
the quality should be, but we never produce it,” he says. “Customers are told
these plastics meet the 30-micron requirement, but that’s simply not true.”
Zimbabwean law
bans the production and distribution of plastic packaging thinner than 30
microns (a unit of measurement to describe plastic thickness), except for bread
packaging, which must measure at least 25 microns. However, the country faces
an influx of inexpensive plastic imports from China, coupled with a rise in
Chinese-owned manufacturing firms, which now dominate the plastic industry.
Many of these
importers and manufacturers exploit weak law enforcement to produce plastics
that measure lower than the standard, exacerbating a pollution crisis that’s
already critical.
“[They] don’t
care about quality. Their products are cheaper. People can just walk in and buy
in bulk,” says Donald Marumbwe, who has worked in the plastic manufacturing
industry for over 30 years.
Global Press
Journal collected samples from Colour Maximal and independently tested them.
All samples were thinner than the required 30 microns. Some bags measured were
just 20 microns.
Global Press
Journal also measured bread bags from Mbare marketplace, which, according to
the regulations, should range between 25 to 30 microns. Some of those bags
measured as thin as 6 microns.
Thin plastic bags, often used just once, can take thousands of years to decompose, turning into harmful microplastics that threaten wildlife and enter the human food chain. Thicker plastic is likely to be reused and recycled, reducing environmental impact.
But thin
plastic is cheaper to make, says Tatenda Murwira, a manager at Colour Maximal.
It’s the reason his employer manufactures this kind of plastic, despite the
law. “We’re profit-oriented,” he says. “It’s all about saving materials and
keeping prices competitive.”
In the end,
it’s Zimbabweans who suffer. A significant portion of plastic waste —
approximately 18% of the country’s total waste — isn’t disposed of properly. It
has clogged rivers, littered streets, and, worse, been linked to deadly flash
floods and animal deaths due to ingestion. Since 2010, plastics, both locally
produced and imported, have caused the deaths of about 5,000 animals.
Amkela Sidange,
the environmental education and publicity manager at Zimbabwe’s Environmental
Management Agency, says they conduct routine inspections to prevent the
manufacturing and distribution of plastic that doesn’t meet requirements. Those
caught violating the law face fines that could reach 500 United States dollars.
But Murwira,
the manager at Colour Maximal, says that while officials from the environment
agency have visited the company, which has been operating for more than a
decade, they’ve never inspected the factory. “They never check the quality of
our products,” he says.
This story was
originally published by Global Press Journal.
0 comments:
Post a Comment