At present plastic products i.e., bags, bottles, cups glasses, and pots are widely used everywhere in Sierra Leone and elsewhere. Departmental stores, malls and marts are also encouraged to use plastic bags, bottles and other pots for nurturing the consumption culture. All the plastic products are made of petrochemical goods and hardly decompose in nature. It is estimated that 5500 trillion pond plastic goods are produced every year in the world.  And 33% are inorganic wastages (plastic goods) among them. At present most countries including Sierra Leone are facing the problem of inorganic wastage i.e., plastic wastage.

The development process brings happiness and prosperity to society. But it also brings excess consumption culture. The more you consume, the more you use plastic products such as junk and fast and cane food that are packed in plastic products.  It is not exaggerating to say that plastic is the by-product of the developmental process. People use plastic products because it is lighter and cost-effective for carrying goods than any other bag which is made of other materials. Many industrialists and traders are using it only because it reduces the wrapping cost.

Several problems occur due to the use of these inorganic (Plastic products) goods in an excessive manner. In Freetown, the Capital City of Sierra Leone, excessive use of these plastic products creates health hazard problems as well as it pollutes the communities living around the dumping sites as well. Now the time has come to rethink the use of plastic products and how to minimize its adverse effect on the health of mankind and the environment. It can be solved by two ways. One it can be solved by recycling and reusing it and the other by using it in extracting fuel.

Have you ever wondered how much plastic is produced every year around the world and since most of it is non-biodegradable, what happens to it when we throw our used plastic bottles, tubs, pens, and so on in the dustbins? If we look at the Greenpeace report (Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans, 2006), of the 260 million tons of plastic the world produces each year, and about 10 percent ends up in the Ocean. Some of the plastic waste is simply dumped in landfills or burned. The leftover of which is again dumped in the sea or landfills. So this gives a fair idea of the crisis that we have on earth due to plastic. 

However, to control it a bit, recycling has come up as a very effective method. To elaborate, plastic recycling is the process of recuperating waste plastic and then reprocessing the material into useful products. The recycling of plastic into lumber is not just great to reuse plastic, in fact it is a great product that is now replacing timber. Less use of timber can result in reducing deforestation, preserving water catchment areas and thereby solving a lot of environmental challenges. However, the process of recycling plastic is a little expensive than recycling metals owing to the difference in both the materials.

You might have heard of waste management companies using water and windmills to generate electricity and using eco-friendly cleaners to lessen their impact on the environment. Now, there are efforts and research to turn garbage into sources of energy. The answer lies in biogas, a kind of fuel that is made up of food waste. The composted matter is mixed with natural gases, resulting in sustainable energy. Biogas is just as effective as more conventional forms of energy and can be used to power vehicles.