What solutions to combat plastic pollution? This question was at the center of the reflections that punctuated World Environment Day, around June 5.

To combat plastic pollution, the measures taken by decision-makers, in particular the government, and development partners or economic operators, will be in vain if they are not accompanied by citizen action. In this case, individual actions against plastic pollution will be decisive in the strategies to be implemented against this scourge which is a consequence of consumption patterns.

It is on the strength of this conviction that the oil operator Maurel & Prom Gabon, after donating plastic bottle recycling baskets to Libreville, did the same in Port-Gentil where its managing director, Mathieu Thabault, at the head of a company delegation, was received at length by Mayor Gabriel Tchango on 30 June.

The endowment, consisting of ten recycling baskets with a capacity of 9 m3 each, received by the fourth deputy mayor, Marie Claire Ogoula, will make Portgentillais actors in the recycling of plastic bottles. This will, of course, involve awareness campaigns in order to make users adopt new habits called upon to learn how to perform the right actions to fight against plastic pollution.

Indeed, the recycling of plastic bottles, like the recovery of any waste, is a process comprising several stages. Among these, users will have to comply with two constraints. First, sort to separate plastic bottles from other household waste; then convey the plastic bottles thus sorted to the baskets intended to receive them. There the action of the average citizen stops. Other actors will take over.

In other latitudes, this type of activity provides jobs, especially for young people who can organize themselves as communal collectors of plastic bottles for a fee. Civil society organizations (associations, NGOs, cooperatives, neighborhood development committees) would certainly also find their place and their account. Not to mention the craft SMEs that would make the baskets. The lot provided was produced by a Librevilloise SME.

In the same vein, the local authority can create "environmental brigades" to ensure that the process runs smoothly.

It will be understood, it could be a question of creating a chain with several links where each actor will have to play an essential role so that the chain is not broken.

In this case, the economic operator has played its part and passed the baton to the community, because the protection of the environment must be everyone's business.

Photo: Marie Claire Ogoula and Mathieu Thabault making the symbolic gesture in front of a recycling basket.

Fidèle AFANOU EDEMBE

Port-Gentil/Gabon