The governments of Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe have launched a $90-million project to reduce the releases of hazardous chemicals from plastics in a sector-based approach covering the automotive, electronics, and construction industries.
Hazardous chemicals, including Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), are used in an array of different plastic products to enhance their properties, a statement by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
"POPs remain intact for decades, accumulate in the environment, and are released throughout the lifecycle of these plastics, harming human health, the environment and the economy. Their presence in plastics also limits circularity, as POPs-contaminated materials cannot be safely reused, recycled or reintroduced in the value chain.
"The Stockholm Convention has been adding to its annexes POPs for global phase out, which are commonly used as additives in plastic components in industries. Addressing product design to avoid these 'problematic additives' is of high priority for immediate action to avoid a future tsunami of hazardous waste and protect human health and the environment," UNEP said.
African countries, it said, are both major importers and rapidly growing local producers or assemblers of plastic products likely to contain POPs," it added.
The Director of UNEP's Industry and Economy Division, Sheila Aggarwal-Khan, said: "Plastic additives have a range of harmful properties from environmental persistence, toxicity and endocrine disruption, and are present everywhere, so this project has global relevance."
Each project country has selected one sector - known to use plastic-containing products with a high likelihood of POPs contamination - to work in, based on national context and priorities.
"By applying solutions in a total of three sectors, successful practices can be scaled in and outside the selected sectors," Director of the Basel Convention Coordinating Centre for Training and Technology Transfer for the African Region,"Percy Onianwa added.
