Malawi

PlasticBusters is an international organisation with thousands of volunteers in 87 countries who work tirelessly to keep our beautiful planet clean from harmful litter. Our mission is to create consensus around the climate emergency with a focus on the negative impact of plastic waste in our environment, as well as actively tackle the issue by promoting individual and group litter picking activities around the globe.

PlasticBusters Malawi

PlasticBusters Malawi is relatively new having been established in February 2021 with same objectives and goals as the mother body, PlasticBusters International. We aim to actively tackle the issue by promoting individual and group litter picking activities around the country where plastic waste is a serious problem affecting soil and water yet most households in Malawi depend on farming and groundwater for their livelihoods and consumption respectively. Making our surroundings cleaner and plastic waste free is everyone's responsibility as we try to restore the lost glory of the mother nature. We look forward to having you joining us on this noble cause and you are very welcome to join us!

Malawi has since mid 1990s been experiencing a problem of littering, improper waste dumping and plastic pollution. Among the factors linked to these problems are rapid population growth, laxity by local authorities in enforcing proper disposal of waste and the growing demand of packaging especially for groceries and agriculture produce sold in local markets. This has resulted in people dumping plastic waste anyhow, most of which ends up in landfills and rivers casing an eyesore while at the same time exacerbating natural disasters like urban flooding. Thin plastics have also been a cause for deaths of livestock like goats after ingesting improperly dumped plastic waste. While in 2019, the country banned manufacturing of thin plastics in what environmental experts termed as a step in right direction, the ban was stayed after manufacturers challenged it in the court of law. Since then, thin plastics which disappeared for a while, returned thereby increasing the quantity of plastic waste.

As a start, we adopted the Mudi stream in the area of Chief Makata, Blantyre Rural East. This is a river which is a source of water for most people in the area for irrigating winter crops and also whose banks make a good vegetable farming site but irresponsible dumping of plastic waste in river is threatening productivity. We aim to clean Mudi and Lirangwe rivers of plastcs waste in the shortest period possible. We also have a school project where we have partnered with a public primary school, Mudi Primary School in Blantyre Rural East where we are teaching the pupils the need to care for our environment and make sure we quit using thin plastics and switch to baskets and bags when going shopping so as to reduce the usage of plastics. The idea is to nurture young people into climate sensitive citizens who can take care of the environment and ensure its sustainability.

If you may wish to learn more about our activities in Malawi and perhaps joining us, please contact Deogracias by phone on 0888844247

Our contact in Malawi

Deogracias Benjamin Kalima

Based in Malawi, Deogracias is our ambassador for the Sub-Saharan Africa region and also supports the team with content creation. He is a solutions journalism expert with 6 years experience generating content for online news sites. He is also a social science researcher with eleven years experience having worked for various research organizations including a stint with Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research (University of Amsterdam). Email, LinkedIn

Read our latest news from Malawi

27 May 2021

Activity Details for Mudi Primary School in Blantyre Rural, Blantyre, MALAWI

Background Information:

Malawi is a rapidly developing and urbanizing country with growing population. Currently the population stands at about 18 million. Incomes are improving and the nature of shopping is changing from street vendors and small businesses to supermarket chains and departmental stores. All this translates into the potential significant growth in demand for plastics. Consumer goods are increasingly being packaged and carried in plastic, most of which is single-use plastic. Vendors use thin plastic bags, retail outlets increasingly use plastic packaging and bags. Beverage companies have switched from glass to plastic bottles. Malawians probably generate more than 0.20 kilograms of plastic waste per person per day. This is exceedingly more than what waste management systems can cope with.

The damage these plastic waste are causing to the environment are there for everyone to see. These include:

✓ Contamination of food and water

✓ Reduced maritime and fishery production

✓ Reduced agricultural and livestock production

✓ Exacerbation of urban flooding and disease outbreaks

✓ Reduced tourism revenues

✓ Contributing to climate change damages

✓ Increasing clean-up costs

Little in Malawi is being done to address the plastic waste problem apart from government introducing a ban to thin plastics which is not being enforced right now resulting in the continued production and use which in turn means more trash eyesores in the urban areas while in rural areas rivers and streams which most people use for irrigation crop farming and fish farming are being overwhelmed by plastic waste.

As a response to this, PlasticBusters Malawi would like to start visiting public schools and teach pupils the need: to care for our environment, switch to more environmental friendly and sustainable carrying habits than using thin plastic carrier bags and clean public places of plastic trash. By visiting schools and teach pupils, we hope to highlight the environmental problem before us and probably trigger an interest to reduce use of plastics by the children and their parents which in turn can reduce the plastic trash to a certain extent.

So on Thursday 27 May, 2021 members of PlasticBusters Malawi will visit Mudi Primary School in Blantyre Rural, Blantyre to sensitive pupils and introduce them to Plastic Busters work in an interaction session. Thereafter, Plastic Busters will donate exercise books, ballpoint pens and pencils to the school to be distributed to the pupils. The donation has been made possible with a generous support from Jaime Amoedo, the founder of Plastic Busters International.

Together We Can!

AdoptTheWorld

Please fill the form below if you would like to join our AdoptTheWorld initiative and adopt a place (a road, a beach, a park, a forest… you name it!) and pledge to maintain it litter free to contribute to the preservation of our environment, and in support of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030)

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