Senegal’s Environmental R….R….R…..oar (Renew, Reuse, Recycle )

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Whether you are in the city of Dakar at the University or a remote village there is a common feature to be found: Plastic.

Black Plastic bags, blue plastic bags, white plastic bags

Plastic coffee or tea cups,

plastic water bottles, plastic coca-cola, fanta, and sprite bottles.

This plastic is often interlaced with trash. This new age material is very difficult to breakdown taking potentially hundreds of years to decay. While it seems so useful to everyday living, when dumped in the villages which do not have a recycling program it is bad. Even if you burn it, the toxic smoke coming from the trash is not good for the health of the children or anyone and it contributes to local air pollution.

When visiting the village of Kawsara two weeks ago to maintain the solar array, I told Janee, one of the students, that we were going to get some trash bags and try to clean up this beautiful village. Two days before leaving that is exactly what we aimed to do. While cleaning up a teacher, David, for one of the students was visiting the village. We talked about the situation and how the plastics were very bad for the environment and soils and that it took so long to break down. He said that many of the villagers were not aware of it and considered it as normal trash, which would eventually decay.

I suggested to him that we put a program together, with the college and high school students and begin to (1) clean up the villages and (2) talk to the village members (men, women and children) about the negative aspects of all of the plastic. I think that this is the first step. But of course we want to go further.

I would like to find a sponsor or push a fundraiser to provide renewable bags to all of the people in the village so that they don't have to get the little black plastic bags. The renewable bags that we use when we go to the grocers would be fine. I looked in Dakar for them but I could not find them. If I can take 1000 renewable bags with me when I go to Senegal next year that would be great; 10,000 would be better.

What about the bottles: I think that there must be a company in Senegal that can take these bottle and either recycle them or transform them into other products such as mats or bags. If such a business does not exist, it could be created in the rural areas and provide local income for the villages. I see this as another way to empower the young people of Senegal by letting find solutions to the problems that exists right now.

The most hopefully part of cleaning up Kawsara was the children. We asked them to help us gather all of the plastic bottles and also asked them to not throw bottles there anymore. We also asked them to tell their parents not to do so. After a short time, we had an army of the youngest members of the village helping us. That is really a beautiful and important investment in the future NOW!!