EPA Convenes Dialogue To Address Plastic Waste

On Thursday 8th August 2024, the Environment Protection Agency Sierra Leone (EPA-SL) met with key stakeholders to dialogue on addressing plastic pollution.
Making remarks on behalf of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the Chief Director EPA-SL, Sheku Kanneh said that they have ensure that all key players in the protection of the environment are invited to grace the all-important dialogue.
He said that the engagement is for them as stakeholders within the ecosystem of environment protection to hang heads and address the problem of plastics.
Stressing that the pollution of plastic is very great, he referenced that there is about 9 to 14 million tons of plastic waste in the environment according to a 2016 report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). He said that at a meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), member states present agreed to have an intergovernmental committee that will develop a legally binding instrument on plastic in order to ensure it pollution reduction. That it gave the Executive Chair or the Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme the authority to establish the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on Plastic Pollution, adding that they started with INC1 and that they are now on INC4 preparing to go to INC5. He mentioned that they have come a long on the preparation of the draft text and discussions on same.
“At the moment, we are the point preparing for an intersessional working group and also for an engagement in finalizing the draft document to have an instrument that speaks to plastic pollution reduction at the end of the fifth session which is highly significant,” he said.
He pointed out that during the dialogue, they will be looking at where they are at the moment, also how we Sierra Leone’s position will be placed in the final document and to empower their negotiators to be able to make a strong country case.
Giving an overview of the New Draft Text, the Director of Natural Resource Governance, Paul A. Lamin said that what is available at the moment is a plastic policy and that what they are now doing to see how best it can align with the current treaty that is negotiated at the moment. He said that they will be doing gap analysis in order to ascertain whether the current policy is fit for purpose or that they still need to work on it before implementation.
“So today we are here to give briefing on the INC4 which is the latest one that was held in Canada and also discuss briefly on two main topics,” he said. He maintained that they will be consulting with the key stakeholders as to what should be their position.
In his debriefing on INC4, The Chief Director EPA-SL, Sheku Kanneh said that even plastic is use, but that its management and recycling is of utmost challenge as developing countries have been struggle to contain it. He said that in December 2017 at the United Nations Environmental Assembly, a resolution was made to establish an ad hoc expert working group on marine litter and micro plastic was as a result of concerns raised that plastics is affecting the marine environment.
He explained that in June to October 2018, in Norway an annex was submitted to amend the Annex to the Basel Convention to specifically cover plastic. That in March 2019 in India a multi stakeholder platform was established to take immediate action towards addressing the litter of plastics into the oceans.
And that in May 2019 at Basel, member states unanimously adopted a plastic waste amendment which created several annexes that speaks to plastic waste. He mentioned that March 2022 served as the watershed which set the pace for strong voices for the control of plastic wastes.