ENVIRONMENT-CHAD: Plastic Bags Convenient, Ubiquitous, Stifling

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Michael Didama

N'DJAMENA, May 9 2007 (IPS) - You see them in roads, public squares and dump sites. Even more are unearthed when road building operations get underway in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, making plastic bags one of the biggest sources of pollution in the city.

The bags are imported from neighbouring Nigeria, and called “lédas” – a term some speculate is derived from the word “leather”.

“I use lédas because they are practical and less cumbersome,” says Maïmouna Angaré Djarma, a resident of N’Djamena.

She admits to being aware of the environmental hazards presented by the bags, which are more than just an eyesore: But…we are so used to these bags that we’re not managing to give them up.”

If Médard Laokein Kourayo has his way, however, this will change. A former minister of tourist development and also of agriculture, Kourayo has made an obsession of the fight to rid the landscape of plastic bags. He also directs an environmental grouping, the Club of Prospectors for Green Gold, headquartered at Moundou in southern Chad.

Plastic bags have a life span of 50 to 100 years, he explains; this means the bags can clog the soil for up to a century, taking a severe toll on plant life.

“Non-degradable plastic bags contribute to the desertification of our country without people being aware of it. These plastic bags stifle the soil and make it unfavourable for all plant growth,” Kourayo says.

Of a dump site that was opened by the mayor next to a reforested area in Walia, at the southern exit of N’Djamena, he notes: “These trees will die, for certain. They will die because the waste thrown into the dump is mostly made up of these non-degradable plastic bags.”

More than a decade ago, the minister of trade banned the import of bags from Nigeria in a bid to tackle this scourge. Shortly after his decree took effect, officials from the trade ministry seized several tones of bags, storing them in a customs warehouse in southern N’Djamena.

When the officials arrived at the warehouse the next day to incinerate the bags, however, matters did not go as planned: they discovered that the bags had been stolen overnight. The lédas later surfaced in the markets of N’Djamena and neighbouring regions.

Several organisations, including the Club of Prospectors for Green Gold, are raising awareness amongst communities about the dangers posed by non-degradable plastic bags – this with support from government and local authorities.

“The solution to the problem of plastic bags lies in a conscientisation of Chadians about the dangers that they present,” says Ahmat Agalla, director for forests and environmental protection in the Ministry of the Environment.

The organisations are also helping start recycling initiatives for plastic bags, which can be used to make ornaments, hats and bags, amongst others.

But the Club of Prospectors for Green Gold believes still more needs to be done, especially at a time when Chad – seriously threatened by the advance of the Sahara – needs to plant trees, and have them grow to maturity.

“Our water and forestry officials behave today like mere tax collectors,” says Kourayo. “They should rather be trained as environmental education officials. If we do not change environmental policy, our children will inherit a dead country in a century.”

At present, Agalla’s department only organises occasional awareness-raising meetings about plastic bags.

Perhaps the road to the future may also involve revisiting past customs: about 30 years ago, traditional raffia baskets were the norm, not plastic bags.

“The women of today think they are civilised, and go to market with empty hands as if carrying their raffia baskets from home to market was embarrassing. In my time, each woman had her raffia basket, and we did not have a dirty and polluted environment like now,” says Djarma’s mother, Medeleine Nekingalar.

“Today, even oil and milk are put in lédas. It’s not right!”