Do you know that we have lost control of plastic to business?, and that alot has occurred that we didn't plan for? Well, I will tell you about my country, Uganda. 

For those who don't know Uganda, she is the famously known pearl of Africa. Uganda is an East African state that is rich in cultural diversity and tourist attractions. Just to mention a few, Uganda has the world’s most gorilla population and harbors lake Victoria, which is the source of the river Nile, the longest river in the world that feeds Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan and Libya into the Mediterranean sea. 

Uganda is a developing country hence highly prone to development's inevitable environmental consequences. Plastics are not any exception, as convenience and modernization take shape in the country's business sector. Today, almost everything is atleast partially made from plastic; plastic bags, bottles, clothes, phones, computers, straws and packaging materials though my emphasis will be on plastic bags. 

In Uganda, it has successfully saturated urban areas and has found its way into the soil and water bodies. The popularity of polythene bags (locally known as "kaveera") among Uganda's businesses is unequaled but sees many of them ending up on the streets because of poor disposal.  

One wonders if there's any action being taken to curb this problem as statistics pause it worst, that the population is releasing 600 tonnes of plastic in Kampala (the capital city) every day and less than three percent is properly disposed off or reprocessed.(Uganda: Plastics Still Biggest Threat to Water Resources - Wwf, 2021)

Business, business, business! is all that people care about. You sound a nuisance to them when you mention about environmental consequences, all they need is money and nothing less. 

The government has enacted plastic bag bans over the years on four separate occasions!, but implementation and opposition from manufacturers has limited their success. 

It is safe to say that the salience of business power of manufacturing companies has obstructed the implementation of anti-plastic bag policies. These companies are the nineth largest tax payers in the country. In addition, they employ more than 6,000 people full-time and 20,000 people part time to produce and distribute the plastics. All these are significant "solutions" to the country's weak economy and high unemployment respectively, but should we pardon them and neglect the environmental question? 

Many get perturbed as to why the Ugandan government can't learn from its neighbor, Rwanda, which successfully banned plastic in 2008 and has received widespread praise for its environmental leadership. However, it looks like the Ugandan government is unlikely to stop the companies, a move one would think is the best to solve this whole matter, since if you don’t want a dog to eat a bone, you don’t throw it there.  

But should the government's failure mean defeat for us all?, probably not. Environmentalists in the nation are now turning their forces to the education sector with belief that raising the future generation with environmental and climate change awareness could be even more effective. Uganda boasts of the world's second youngest population after Niger hence the demographics are in favor of this plan. Campaigns for the use of paper bags at school canteens rather than plastic bags are on and youth are taught daily practices that can reduce plastic use, like owning a bottle to keep drinks and avoid the one-time plastic disposables. 

As Nelson Mandela stated that education is the most powerful weapon to change the world, Uganda's environmentalists are walking this talk. Personally, I have a cleanliness initiative called the Nansana Cleaning Club where we sensitize and raise awareness about climate change and environmental conservation among the youth, in and outside schools. 

The bottom line is, we are the customers hence if me and you resort to non-plastic alternatives, we can make businesses more environmentally friendly.  In addition, as long as we don't address plastic pollution from a global perspective, we'll not solve it hence I call upon each one of us to play our role. 

References 

allAfrica.com. 2021. Uganda: Plastics Still Biggest Threat to Water Resources - Wwf. [online] Available at: <https://allafrica.com/stories/202003200105.html> [Accessed 26 March 2021].