Waste plastic Disposal: A grave problem
Mwayafu David, UCSD June 22, 2010Waste is a man-made substance in a given time and places which in actual structure and state is not useful to the owner and/or is an output without an owner and purpose. Waste may be in solid or liquid states. Waste includes all items that people no longer have any use for, which they either intend to get rid of or have already discarded. Additionally, wastes are such items which people are require to discard, for example by lay because of their hazardous properties. Many items can be considered as waste e.g., household rubbish, sewage sludge, wastes from manufacturing activities, packaging items, discarded cars, old televisions, garden waste, old paint containers etc. Thus all our daily activities can give rise to a large variety of different wastes arising from different sources.
Solid wastesrefer to particles or materials which are no longer useful to their owners and which require
to be discarded. They are movable objects, which have no direct use and or no ‘current’ market value or no use to the individual that they require to be disposed of. They are classified as organic/biodegradable and non- bio-degradable wastes
Re-use means the use of a product on more than one occasion, either for the same purpose or for a different purpose, without the need for reprocessing. Re-use avoids discarding a material to a water stream when its initial use has concluded. It is preferable that a product be re-used in the same state e.g., returnable plastic pallets, using an empty glass jar for storing items and using second hand clothes. Reuse is normally preferable to recycling as there isn't the same requirement for the material to have gone through a detailed treatment process thus helping to save on energy and material usage.
Recycling involves the treatment or reprocessing of a discarded water material to make it suitable for subsequent re-use either for its original form or for other purposes. It includes recycling of organic wastes but excludes energy recovery. Recycling benefits the environment by reducing the use of virgin materials. Many different materials can be recycled. Water materials can either be recycled for use in products similar to their original use (e.g., paper recycling) or can be recycled into a product which is different that the original use (e.g., recycling plastic bottles into fleece jackets or using construction and demolition water as road aggregate.
The inadequacy to manage solid waste efficiently and effectively remains a big challenge to growing Kampala today. Currently Uganda experiences high population growth in urban areas with very little improvement on household welfare. The fast growth of urban areas has resulted in to more solid waste disposals far above the capacities for the natural environment to assimilate these waste disposals. Therefore solid waste management is one of the biggest development challenges faced by Kampala city today.
Solid waste generation in Kampala city is estimated to be at 0.2 metric tons per person per year on average (Ngategize et al., 2001). Therefore, considering an urban population of 3.7 million people i.e. 13.4% of the total population (Uganda population secretariat , 2007), It means that approximately 740,000 metric tons of solid waste are generated in urban areas per year. Of this, only 41% solid waste generated is disposed off properly (UNDP, 2005). The remaining 51% is left uncollected thereby ending up dumped in drainage and sanitary drainage channels, natural water courses, manholes, underdeveloped plots and roadsides among other unfit places (NEMA, 2004).
Why recycle plastics
The subject is to create employment and save the environment by recycling plastics. Indeed, the quantity of plastic products which are thrown away after use is far higher where the whole population has a “consumer” life style, so opportunities exist.
The plastics waste that has been used once in the world outside and can be collected and processed for return to the factory and remoulded for a second service life.
In an age when worldwide unemployment and pollution has reached levels not previously expected, it is not necessary to justify any article that introduces employment creation opportunities.
Some reasons, peculiar to plastics, must be presented here they are as follows:- Economics
Some recycling activities are not profitable: they cost more than they earn. In general those are most profitable that deal in high value materials. For example the recycling of high grade waste paper, such as computer paper, is usually far more profitable and less problematic than that of newspaper and cardboard which have value. Plastics, which are mainly derived from petroleum, are expensive materials, at least in terms of their weight. This means they can be recycled profitably, and creating long term environmental benefits reducing the potential of diseases and illness and preventing landfill sites used for more productive work.
Recyclability
Some materials are naturally recyclable, others are not. For instance, scrap copper can be melted to produce ingots of the same quality as new copper, smelted from ore. Waste paper on the other hand can never be restored to its initial quality no matter what care is taken in refining and purifying.
Plastics are near the better end of the recyclability scale. If they are properly cleaned and foreign matter is removed, the quality of some plastics can be almost as good on the second use as on the first.
Labour intensity
The recycling process can be broken down into different stages, some of which are optional. The initial stages: collection, sorting and cleaning of the materials are all labour intensive and require little capital equipment.
The work is suitable for those who have little skill and the sorting and cleaning maybe done by people with certain sorts of disability.
Sorting of waste at Aryan Recycling Industries Ltd (Photo: UCSD) Environmental Benefit
Because it degrades slowly under the effects of wind, sun and rain, plastics waste is one of the most objectionable kinds of little. It lies around streets and open spaces for weeks or months after it has been dropped. It may become coated with other, objectionable wastes, provide a harbor for vermin and insects and block up drainage systems. Any process of recycling that places a value upon this material, so that there is a financial advantage in preserving it rather than discarding it, it is to be welcomed.
The benefit is greater in poor urban areas, where even small earning opportunities will be seized, as these are the districts where municipal cleansing is frequently least thorough.
Factories that produce plastic products from raw materials also produce a great deal of harmful Green House Gases (GHGs). By using recycled plastic materials production time is greatly reduced, which means that less GHG emissions are making their way into the atmosphere.
Conservation of resources
By using recyclable plastic materials, factors can produce new products using approximately 2/3 less energy than with raw material production. One ton of recycled plastic can save a years’ worth of energy consumption for two people.
Oil and natural gas are two of the main components used for the production of raw materials used to make plastic. These natural resources are not only in limited supply, but also in high demand for other important uses such as powering automobiles and producing electricity. Recycled plastic materials means that less natural resources are used for production of new plastic materials.
Foreign exchange improvements
Although the manufacturing of plastics products may be well developed, few developing countries make their own raw materials. These are therefore imported. If products are not exported foreign debt is created. By recycling local scrap, these imports and hence the debt, can be reduced. Where plastics feedstock is produced locally recycling may still save energy and raw petroleum.
A chance for the urban poor
Finally, a vigorous plastics recycling industry can provide unique opportunities for the poorest to earn a small income by collecting waste materials for sale to a recycling plant. No capital is need, skills may be passed from one to another with little difficulty, so this can provide a catchment against the consequences of extreme poverty.
Recycling has benefits for the community, for the nation, for industry and for individual by creating opportunities for Ugandans through recycling.
The Aryan recycling Industries Ltd has employed 30 employees directly and over 40 employees indirectly collecting the wastes at different sites in Makindye Division. While the Nyatti Plastic store has employed 11 workers directly with others in the field for collection of the waste before it can be transported to the plant.
Workers posing for a photo at their workstation in Namuwongo (Photo: UCSD) Challenges faced by the Aryan and Nyatti plastic stores
The main challenges is electricity that the plant has been using and since it was disconnected by UMEME it has taken a while and this is a threat to the company because if the situation continues according to the Project Manager Mr. Shoeb Chandoo, says “it will be hard for them to continue paying their staff unless the problem is resolved immediately” about approaching the electricity company for reconnection company is not willing to do so and instead wants the ARYAN Recycling Industries to buy a transformer
that costs not less than 40 Million Uganda shillings this has incapacitated the Aryan for its efforts to keep the environment clean through recycling of the wastes.
The company has so far collected over 20 tones of plastic waste and their achievement is being curtailed if they don’t get reconnected soon because they have even stopped field waste collection until the power issue is sorted out.
What are the future plans of Aryan?
The company expects to put up more machines to recycle waste and currently they have placed an order for the machine that will be used to make recycled plastic papers.
Insufficient space to store recyclable plastic waste, particularly in impoverished urban areas, The space so far available for the company is not enough and it will affect the future expansion plans and this will only be resolved through seeking a bigger space so that it can accommodate all the waste that are expected to be collected in the division.
Lack of awareness amongst communities regarding the consequences of plastic waste dumping. The biggest challenge that could be taken up as an opportunity is through creation of awareness and sensitization of the general public about the need for waste collection at household levels and the manager says It will be better in future for them to develop information and education communication materials so as to sensitization the communities in the division about the advantage of sorting and collection of the waste so that they can pick.
Fire outbreak at Nyatti Plastic store caused a lot of loss to the owner, among the things destroyed are the machines, waste that had been earlier on collected and approximately over 6 Million Uganda shillings was lost. Due to the location of Nyatti Plastic store the fire brigade could not arrive in time to put out the fire. Hence Mr. Musisi has started over again from scratch to put his Nyatti Plastic store in order.
According to the Managing Director, Mr. Musisi Silas recounts from the fire outbreak that caused him a loss of over 10Million due to the loss of his machines and wastes that he had collected and used his money to buy. It was a great loss and now he is picking up from scratch so that he can reinstate the plant to continue with processing and recycling of the waste.
Diseases today in the peri urban squalor settlement are greatly a result of breeding of the various kinds of disease carrying organisms in large numbers. This has been made very possible due to the large numbers of non-biodegradable polythene wastes that are widely spread around the city streets.
