Plastic bottles can be recycled
Conservationists, Manufacturers, and processors have joined hands to initiate the use of bio-degradable plastics in the country, through a two-year pilot project spearhead by the Uganda Biodiversity Fund (UBF). The project dubbed Clean Products for the Environment, (CPE) will run up to 31st August 2025.
The program has brought together Luuka plastics as the key manufacturers, Jakana foods and Rena beverages as the packaging users, Green Africa as the technology providers, as well as NEMA and UNBS to regulate the entire processes.
Under this project, Luuka Plastics the project manufacturer, is to produce bio-degradable plastic packages for Jakana and Rena, using technology from India, and locally supplied by Green Wheel Africa holdings. The two food processing factories agreed to meet the additional cost for the bio-degradable packaging material which comes with the improvement in the manufacturing technology.
“The project intends to increase adoption of clean production processes, as well as increasing private sector funding for biodiversity conservation. It is budgeted to cost over USD 158,000” says Ivan Amanigaruhanga the Uganda Biodiversity Fund’s Executive Director.
According to Amanigaruhanga, the project will foster change in the country’s plastic production and consumption behaviors by introducing degradable plastics, and will also focus on public sensitization about plastic disposal.
“Though the project starts with a small budget, and with only Luuka plastics on the production side, during the project lifetime, we intend to design a scale-up worth up to USD 10 million, which should cover the whole country. We are doing our best to tap into the private sector funding, we believe that the education component of the project will convince everyone to see what is at stake, and join us in this effort, as well as the government to amplify the massaging,” said Amanigaruhanga.
Paul Walakira, the Principal Standards officer at the Uganda Bureau OF Statistics UNBS) said the partnership intends to replace non-biodegradable plastic with Biodegradable ones.
Alex Ampaire, the CEO of Green Wheel Africa who is the supplier of the technology that will be used in the manufacture of bio-degradable said though the technology is new to Uganda and Africa in general, it has been used in other parts of the world and has succeeded.
“Bio-degradable plastics, have been proven to be the more effective way of eliminating the plastic danger to the environment, better than many other methods like the ban on kaveera, which has failed to be effective for some time now.”
Ampaire says that technology does not change the production line of the non bio-degradable plastics, what only changes, are the ingredients in the substance used in the making of the product. He adds that the Bio degradable ingredients are categorized into that which decomposes in less than one month, and that which takes more than six months.
-URN
