(232news.com)
STATEMENT OF THE HON. MINISTER OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE, PROF. FODAY MORIBA JAWARD MARKING WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY JUNE 5, 2023
Ladies and gentlemen,
Today, June 5, 2023 is World Environment Day. World Environment Day is a day set aside by the United Nations Organization to remind us about how we interact with nature and our environment, and our actions towards its preservation. This day is meant to increase global awareness about the state of our environment and the need to protect our physical and natural resources.
World Environment Day is celebrated globally every year. Sierra Leone being an integral part of the global community, we join the world today again to raise our voices and spread awareness about the importance of the environment and the environmental challenges we face in different parts of the world.
This year’s World Environment Day is celebrated with the theme “Beat Plastic Pollution”. It is a theme that calls for sustainable solutions and behavioural change towards the management of plastic waste. Plastics have severe impacts on the health and life of human beings. In the last decade, plastic waste has drawn worldwide attention and placed a question mark on the use of plastics in everyday life. The majority of the plastics comprise single-use plastics, food wrappings, plastic bags, and plastic bottles. As we do not dispose of them properly, they end up littering our communities, drainages, and dumpsites and eventually end up in our beaches, rivers, waterways and the sea.
Ladies and gentlemen, the influx of plastics into our environment has reached crisis levels all over the world, and this is evident through the pollution of our beaches, seas and the environment. Plastic is non-degradable material; it does not completely mix up with the natural elements of the soil in the environment unlike degradable materials like food waste.
Plastics persist in nature for a more extended period of time than other materials. Plastic waste poses a serious threat to our marine species. Discarded plastics that end up in our rivers and the seas entangle fishing lines, and enter the food chain of fishes, turtles, seabirds and other marine animals. Some fishes confuse it for food and this clogs in their stomach leading to their death. Plastic is now entering all layers of the food chain in marine ecology. Our world can no longer accept throw-away plastics.
Ladies and gentlemen, Sierra Leone has a small plastic manufacturing sector, generating about 96,000 metric tons of plastic products annually. It is sad to know that 60% of the total plastic waste generated is not collected from the source. Most of the plastic waste generated is single-use plastics which are discarded by people with minimal use.
However, several steps have been taken by the Government to reverse the tide of this harmful non-biodegradable waste so that our world will not be overtaken by it. The Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, its Agencies, the World Bank and other partners are diligently working to ensure we clean our environment and eliminate plastics from our environment. Furthermore, cabinet on the 15th of March this year, approved a National Plastic and Plastic Waste Management Policy. The main goal of this policy is to eliminate plastic pollution and not the elimination of plastic use.
The vision is a plastics life cycle that eliminates negative impacts and supports economic growth and job and wealth creation through circularity and sustainable development. The circular economy aims to keep plastic products and materials in use as long as possible and maximize their value by reducing, reusing, repairing, remanufacturing, recycling and composting materials or recovering energy, that is, waste to energy if no other option exists at their end of life. This Policy is currently being popularized in all 16 districts in the country. The National Plastic and Plastic Waste Management bill is being drafted by the law officers Department which will to be submitted to cabinet for approval and then to parliament for enactment into law.
In addition, partners have also been engaged in collecting plastic wastes from our beaches and sea sides within the Freetown municipality and other towns and cities in the country. We have also intensified awareness-raising campaigns to reduce and eliminate the harmful practice of dumping plastic waste in the environment using town hall community engagement meetings, radio and television discussion programs.
Ladies and gentlemen, World Environment Day brings partners together to strengthen our resilience and secure the political will to overcome our environmental challenges.
On behalf of His Excellency, the President, Retired Brigadier Dr. Julius Maada Bio and the Government of Sierra Leone, I would like to extend my appreciation to Ministries, Departments and Agencies, Donor Partners, Civil Society Organizations, Local Councils, traditional authorities, youth and women’s groups and members of the Fourth Estate for their unwavering support and commitment to protect our environment and manage the physical and natural resources in this our beloved country. The Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change is indeed very grateful and we call on all Sierra Leoneans to continue to be vigilant in this direction. Let me end by saying, “if we fail to protect our environment, our environment will fail to protect us”.
I thank you all for listening.
