Company defends plastic use in Namibia

• MATTHEW DLAMININAMIBIAN company Plastic Packaging (Pvt) Ltd believes the country cannot afford an outright ban on the use of plastic in favour of paper packaging.

This is the view of managing director Jaco Venter expressed in a recent statement.

Venter was reacting to an article in The Namibian last December about a campaign by a group of Namibians for a plastic-free environment and a ban in the use of plastic shopping bags in preference of reusable canvas or paper bags.

The campaign is the brainchild of activist Miss Earth Namibia Elize Shakalela, a holder of a masters degree in environmental law from Loyola University in Rome. Other members are musicians Patrick Mwashindange and Dion Auala of the PDK group and parliamentarian Sophia Swartz.

Swartz is the chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Management of Natural Resources.

Shakalela believes the impact of the use of plastic bags on the environment, agriculture, livestock and wildlife is normally not stressed enough.

“Research indicates that plastic can take up to 1000 years to degrade once released into the environment. Due to factors like drought it is even more necessary for Namibia to implement plastic management measures to safeguard our animals and maintain a clean environment,” she said in December.

Although Venter concedes that plastic can be an environmental hazard, he believes the problem lies with people who do not dispose of the plastic in the proper manner.

He believes the solution to the problem is in recycling the plastic waste instead of sending it to the landfill.

“There are a vast amount of active efforts towards a cleaner Namibia, and because of the relative small population, we believe that it is within our reach to be a very clean country with some of the highest recycling rates in the world,” Venter said, adding that a few entities were already involved in recycling of waste material. He said the Recycle Namibia Forum is an organisation started and operated by concerned businesses and recyclers.

The forum coordinates recycling and cleanup campaigns throughout Namibia and runs schools recycling competitions as well as coordinating clean-up campaigns with local authorities. He added that the Namibia Polymer Recyclers washes and recycles post consumer waste into plastic granules for making refuse bags, builders’ sheeting and pipes.

Venter believes replacing plastic packaging with paper packaging will be untenable for the meat, grape and particularly fish industries to export their products.

“Without Plastic Packaging-certified products (packaging bags, sheetings, shrink film and bottles), these industries may face severe problems to sustain exports,” he said.

“If we are to replace all single use carrier bags with paper bags of the same capacity to do the same job, it will have economic implications.

“The road transport will increase to more than 60 trucks inbound and outbound from the estimated seven full truckloads inwards to the factory or distribution depot, and seven trucks outbound throughout Namibia for the plastic bags or equivalent raw materials.

“It will further mean that Namibia would require between 27 000 and 35 000 trees per month from somewhere on the planet to fulfil our need for paper bags,” he said.

“Plastic grocery bags consume 40% less energy to produce and generate 80% less solid waste than paper bags. If we are to add to the above all other single use paper bags like bread bags, butcher’s bags, fruit and vegetable bags, sugar bags, etc, the above figures will increase four-fold,” he said.

Venter says while countries like South Africa, Rwanda, Bangladesh and Taiwan had legislated against the use of plastic bags, these had been costly to those countries.

“This legislation is believed to have cost South Africa 2 000 to 2 500 job opportunities while the ban in Rwanda gave rise to a vibrant smuggling enterprise as some traders could not run their ventures without plastic bags,” he said.

Taiwan and Bangladesh reversed the legislation after a few years, Venter said.

But Shakalela said despite meeting Venter for discussions on the issue early this year, their anti-plastic campaign, which she says has the support of the Namibia Chamber of Environment and Namibian Scientific Society will continue and its launch is pencilled for the middle of this month. Swartz said she supports the campaign because plastic is an environmental hazard and dangerous to animals who may ingest it.

“However, there is a need for all stakeholders to meet and discuss the extent to which the use of plastic can be controlled. We cannot suddenly say Plastic Packaging must close overnight because up to 500 Namibians might lose their jobs,” she said, adding that there are certain types of food that can only be best packaged in plastic but these are limited.

She said for a start, a ban could be considered on certain imported plastics because of their chemical composition as well as raising awareness among members of the public on the proper use and disposal of plastics. – matthew@namibian.com.na