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The Plastic treaty: What is in it for Africa?
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The proposed global plastic treaty represents a potential instrument for African nations to address the continent's significant challenges with plastic pollution, food security, and economic development, particularly given the region's high policy enactment but poor implementation of waste management approaches.
The new plastic treaty, slated for 2024, represents a shift in the global fight to address environmental pollution and degradation. The international agreement, unlike previous resolutions, covers the lifecycle of plastics and represents a legally binding instrument for ending plastic pollution across all ecosystems. Plastic waste contamination poses significant challenges to African nations. It challenges food security, ecological variation and economic development. The African region has been identified with a high level of enactment of waste management policies but a deficiency of sustainable measures to adopt and implement these policies. The new treaty could provide an instrument for collaboration and innovation and set the stage for Africa to transition to a sustainable plastics environment that promotes zero-waste.
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Ensuring sustainability in plastics use in Africa: consumption, waste generation, and projections
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This review examines plastic consumption, waste generation, and future projections for African nations, finding rapidly increasing plastic use alongside limited waste management infrastructure. The study calls for African-specific sustainability policies to prevent a major escalation in plastic pollution as economic development accelerates across the continent.
Towards a global plastics treaty: Navigating policy preferences and economic interests
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Countries are negotiating a global treaty to fight plastic pollution, but this study finds a split: some nations want to limit plastic production itself, while others, often those with plastic manufacturing industries, prefer focusing only on waste cleanup. If cleanup-only approaches win out, plastic production keeps growing, meaning more plastic and microplastics entering our food, water, and bodies over time.
Impact of Policy Design on Plastic Waste Reduction in Africa
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This paper is not about microplastics; it analyzes the design and effectiveness of single-use plastic bag policies across 39 African countries, identifying policy gaps that allow plastic waste to persist despite widespread bans.
Macro problems from microplastics: Toward a sustainable policy framework for managing microplastic waste in Africa
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Researchers critically reviewed regulatory and policy approaches to managing microplastic pollution across African countries. They found that while environmental monitoring studies demonstrate an urgent need for action, the effectiveness of existing plastic waste policies in Africa remains poorly understood. The study proposes a sustainable policy framework tailored to the unique challenges African nations face in reducing microplastic waste generation and environmental contamination.
Breaking the plastic cycle in Africa: Advancing sustainable solutions for single-use plastic reduction in marine ecosystem beyond current policies
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This paper reviews the scale of single-use plastic pollution across Africa and evaluates current policies for reducing plastic waste in marine ecosystems. The analysis calls for stronger and more targeted interventions given Africa's rapidly growing plastic waste output and limited recycling infrastructure.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.