Help Youth Fight Plastic Pollution & Restore Env
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Hie; there my Name is Pike Ng'oma Co-Founder & Lead Volunteer from Malawi Africa, and am fundraising for Removal of Clogged plastics and other plastic materials from beaches, rivers, markets; hospitals and public places.
https://www.youtube.com/@WeCleanWeGreen-InMalawi
http://tiktok.com/@wecleanwegreen
We are a Legal Registered ® entity Organization in Malawi Africa *COYG-K9FZPB* , under the following objectives;....
-To Clean and Green the damaged environments of Malawi.
-To empower young people with knowledge and skills on environmental management and protection so that they can make informed choices regarding their responsibilities on caring for environment
-To help in mitigation of climate change impacts through cleaning and greening the Malawi’s environments
-To Support Communities with Livelihoods intervention in food security, health & sanitation, Disaster risk preparedness, reduction & Management, education, gender empowerment and Climate change
-To work with other local and international Organizations in implementing projects that will
help achieve SDG's
Advocating for Climate Justices
See
Most young volunteers are working for their environments
Working with other youth clubs to fight climate by maximizing campaign awareness and Cleanups campaigns
There’s an estimated of 75,000 tonnes of plastic produced in Malawi each year, of which 80% is single use which is very difficult to be recycled. According to experts they say the plastics in Malawi may take over four hundred years to decompose. In Malawi there are plastics which are visibly seen which has been there for over one hundred years, most of which are still clogging in rivers, across lake beaches and in other markets and passages. These plastic litters blocks drainage systems which leads to flooding aswel as environmental pollution.
Youths heavily participating in green campaign
We also pick plastics from locations where they do reforestation activities for recycling
As an environmental and climate change activist! alongside my fellow 80 youths of different ages we are all geared to fight plastic pollution together.
We conduct awareness campaigns on plastic pollution in schools and communities as we provide learning , teaching and and food materials to less privileged
This greatly impacts the land and water environments and brings death to some of the species living in these places; You can imagine lake Malawi is the only lake which has over 1,000 species of fish and this is greatly at the blink of extinction if we are not careful. Water life such
as seabirds, fishes, frogs, turtles they see plastic as food and in the process they get starved as their stomach become full of plastics materials the same applies to ruminant animals’ even non ruminants.
Yesterday when we were cleaning up we found a dead dog with coiled plastic in his mouth and the other one at his excretion area mixed with feaces strongly evidencing that the dog died of suffocation due to plastics he swallowed.
Beach Cleanups
Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing global environmental issues adversely affecting terrestrial, coastal and marine man-made and natural ecosystems.
Not only are plastic ingestion and ghost-nets serious biodiversity threats to numerous mammals, reptiles, birds and fish, as stated above but micro-plastic has also begun to enter the human food-supply-system via the consumption of marine vertebrates and invertebrates.
Moreover, unattractive garbage accumulation along rivers, beaches of scenic beauty causes significant economic costs and losses to the tourism industry.
WHAT WE DO WITH THE COLLECTED PLASTICS
We understand plastics fuels climate crisis.
So far we have collected tonnes and tonnes of plastics as a group which started in 2020.
We are operating from lilongwe as a capital city and also in the northern side of Malawi and the team is divided into 5 groups of 80.
All the thin plastics collected are delivered to an organisation which does waste management in for of making plastic blocks and other related materials.
We also deliver to an artist who produces animal sculptures and place them in recreation centers.
Bottles are sometimes delivered to a company which makes dye sacks....just a way of remaking sure that the plastics are recycled.
Most plastics are given to the city assembly for proper disposal .
Other plastic bottles are given to our friends who makes plastic bottles bins and the fill in thin plastic for weight stand.
We are operating locally in 3 cities but we want to grow and save our Malawi and the world environment from plastic pollution.
CHALLENGES SO FAR
- No working and protective equipment only group A has them but fading off
- Logistics to ferry the plastics to last destination or collection centre of recycling
- Visibility for example t-shirts, reflectors ; media etc
- Training equipment for campaigns and awareness on plastic pollution and it's dangers on life. Such as laptops, DIGITAL CAMERA, PROJECTORS ETC
- The young volunteers are all youths and are jobless so sometimes when we have work, they need to have little something let's say for soap to clean their cloths or just a refreshment
- Stigmatised ....Most of the people passing us during plastic picking exercises; trigger words of stigma on us to say we are hopeless; we are faeces removals; we are dirty people calling many many names..
- Big challenge is also our government to recognise our efforts in plastic pickup sector. And also government to.completely ban the production of thin plastics
The main materials that will make our work simple are;
1). Heavy brushes
2). Rakes
3). Barrows
4). Steel made litters like drums
5). Picks
6). Hoes
7). Hard gloves
8). Shovels
9). Re-usable Aprons
10). Boots
11)Collection bags
12). Simple logistics
OTHERS
Introducing zero waste strategies such as waste #separation, #recycling, and #composting
This is our #vision, with full support we can make it...
We also have our partner in the United Kingdom.... WaronplasticUK who is also supporting the fight against Plastic pollution in Malawi, tree planting and feeding the poor..
Another referee is the Deputy British high commissioner to Malawi - David pert.. who has been with us fighting plastic pollution with us..
Other REFERENCES
Please check our Twitter page and appreciate......
Take a look at Pike Ng'oma (@WeCleanWeGreen): https://twitter.com/WeCleanWeGreen?t=VtvNiuH2gMCTVL4ZPsiAjA&s=08
Other plastics like damaged buckets...cups..plates ...plastic shoes etc are sold at Indian shops for recycling
The little money is given to the young volunteers working with us who are still schooling for their exercise books and pens
We have big challenges as to how we gonna transport these plastics to final user...
The group is struggling with logistics etc.....
Other related decomposable wastes are turned into compost manure after the teachings and training...
So its a huge task......
We have solid evidence to say, if these plastics continue flows into production and usage, the country should brace soil degradation, reduction in crop yields, reduction if fish bleeding, flooding, and poor health for both plants and animals and possibly death to some.
Am a concerned citizen of this planet, I have a grief, yes I have a lake of #tears in my heart more especially when I see how humans have taken authority of themselves in damaging the planet through various means.
Nature responds through many ways; good and bad depending on how we work with it;
Malawi's commercial city was just linked listed the most polluted cities in the world. This prompted me to wake up and challenge this ...
Just to make thank you mother earth, I had taken a voluntary initiative to remove Clogged plastics and other wastes in our town and city rivers and other plastic polluyed areas. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/15/africa/malawi-landscape-plastic-pollution-cmd-intl/index.html
Once done we want to do more for our only fresh watered lake - Lake Malawi which is also beached up with plastics and other related waste materials.
The plastic bottles will be recycled to plastic litter bins which will be distributed to hospitals; town assembly, district councils, markets and others .
... All other decomposed wastes like tree or plant residues will be harvested as mulch or manure for town gardening ......etc.
#Support #us#join us; let's work with #nature #Not #against it.
Organizer and beneficiary
Pike Ngoma
Organizer
Boston, MA
Wesley Flach
Beneficiary