No one can go an entire day without encountering plastic. It could be the mattress you sleep on, the toothbrush that keeps germs away or the cup you drink from, food container or even the keyboard you type away with. However, plastic has become a factor affecting human health in various ways, writes Michael Odeng.

That plastic bag lying in your backyard can trap water, which provides fertile breeding ground for millions of parasites, bacteria or viruses. This could come back and hurt your health and loved ones.

According to health experts, uncollected waste creates a big risk in terms of creating breeding ground for disease vectors.

The experts are, therefore, pushing for proper management of plastic waste to prevent disease outbreaks and avert the adverse effects of the plastic waste in the country.

In addition, reckless disposal of plastic waste has caused a tremendous rise in communicable diseases in Uganda, a report from the Ministry of Health has revealed.

The report also indicates that uncontrolled plastic waste fuels the main waterborne diseases in the country and unless controlled, the diseases are slated to increase.

The warning was echoed by Dr Esther Buregyeya, the head of the department of disease control and environmental health at Makerere University, who warned that plastics have a role in the generation of infectious diseases.

She stressed that cold water in plastic waste provides many grounds for waterborne diseases, potentially increasing the local vector population, which has implications for the disease burden.

Dr Buregyeya, an associate professor of public health at Makerere University, said stagnant water generated by plastics also promotes waterborne diseases such as guinea worm, lymphatic filariasis, commonly known as elephantiasis and abscesses, which are painful collections of pus usually caused by a bacterial infection.

She said: “Plastics are hardly degradable and end up causing permanent pollution. It is high time that we did something in our setting with regard to proper management of plastic waste to be able to prevent disease outbreaks.”

Addressing the annual Makerere University Environmental Health Students’ Association conference, Buregyeya said while plastics are considered a miracle product of the 20th century, they have become a curse of the century.

The two-day conference last month at Makerere University attracted different stakeholders including public health practitioners, experts and researchers.

According to experts, plastic, which was first invented in 1862 as a substitute for ivory, began to be extensively used after the industrial revolution in the 20th century.

Unfortunately, it has become a curse because people litter the country with the menacing substance, stunting plant growth. Studies indicate that although plastics are durable, low cost, water-resistant and low-energy, they produce toxic fumes that cause damage after they are inhaled into the respiratory system, attacking the lungs, brain, nervous system and other organs.

“There has been massive importation, production and use of plastics even in our setting in the packaging industry,” Buregyeya noted, emphasising proper management of plastic waste to be able to prevent disease outbreaks.

Buregyeya said plastics are hardly degradable and end up causing permanent pollution that affects human beings. She urged environmental health practitioners to advocate proper plastic management in the country.

“This is our space, no one is going to do it, so it’s high time we did that.”

Waterborne diseases

Other waterborne diseases include typhoid fever, cholera, giardia, dysentery, escherichia coli, hepatitis A, a liver infection caused by consuming contaminated food and water, or by coming into close contact with someone who has the infection and salmonella, which comes from ingesting food or water contaminated with faeces.

Giardia is an intestinal infection caused by a parasite that spreads through contaminated food or water, or by person-to-person contact.

Escherichia coli is a bacteria that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms. Its strains are harmless, but some can cause serious food poisoning.

At the conference, Dr Rhoda Wanyenze, the dean of Makerere University School of Public Health, called for greater attention to be given to the environment in the field of public health, observing that the environment is a critical component of public health that has not been given enough attention.

“I am also worried about what we are eating because, in agriculture, we are using a lot of pesticides. We are spraying everywhere. We are spraying to eradicate malaria, but then we spray everything, we spray the weed and actually I don’t know the surveillance methods that exist, I do not know what is being used, whether it is safe and the amounts we are consuming or what they are going to do to our bodies,” she said.

Wanyenze stressed that it was necessary to incorporate environmental health into the One-Health approach, which focuses on the interconnection between human, animal and environmental health.

Moses Kabangi Mwigo, the assistant commissioner department of environmental health at the health ministry, said there were many contributing factors to disease outbreaks, including uncontrolled urbanisation, wetland encroachment and waste generation.

He encouraged village health teams to report the abnormal occurrences in communities so that they can track communicable disease cases.

“It is important that we contain transmission and once we do that, we protect the public,” he said.

 Statistics from the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) show that plastic takes a lion’s share of this waste, with over 600 metric tonnes being produced every day throughout the country.

Given that only 40% of this waste is collected and disposed of properly, the remaining 60% finds its way into the environment, leading to a number of problems.

According to research conducted by the World Climate School - Uganda chapter, more than 75% of used plastic bottles end up in landfills, lakes and rivers, which is damaging to the environment.

Plastic bottles have gradually replaced glass bottles because of their lower cost.

Surprisingly, modern society has got accustomed to them, but the manner in which they are disposed of in most parts of Uganda is causing an environmental disaster.

The plastic litter can clog up drainage channels, increasing city flooding and end up in lakes and rivers, where fish consume it, becoming a health risk to both aquatic life and humans.

In rural areas, many of the plastics end up in farmlands and gardens, which affects the way crops grow because they block the proper flow of water and air.

Homesteads

In urban centres, most homes are littered with plastic, including water and soda bottles and other forms of plastic. In rural households, plastics generate about 15.9g of plastic waste per day.

Common waste management practices found included open burning, burying, reusing, disposing of plastics in a backyard pit, indiscriminate disposal in the backyard, selling and recycling.

A February 2022 study by researchers at the department of agricultural and biosystems engineering at Makerere University, suggests that urban areas surrounding lakes Edward, George, Albert, and Kyoga produce almost as much plastic waste as those surrounding Lake Victoria, the most polluted lake in the country.

And also, some growing towns on the shores of these lakes, such as Katwe and Muhokya on Lake Edward and Mahyoro on Lake George, are always littered with polythene bags, empty plastic bottles and garbage from household use.

Plastic dumping on Lake Albert shores is equally rampant in towns such as Wanseko on the eastern shores of Lake Albert, Buliisa district and Ntoroko town in the southern part of the lake, as well as Kayago and Kikaraganya, Kikarangenye and Lwampanga landing sites on Lake Kyoga.

Research shows that increased production and use of plastic containers for drinking water, soda and other drinks have escalated the plastic water pollution in areas close to these lakes.

The Ministry of Water and Environment recently raised a red flag indicating that plastic waste is becoming disastrous for urban and rural areas due to poor disposal practices.

Items in different shopping outlets are packaged in polythene bags and without proper disposal, plastic garbage can be seen everywhere.

During the rainy season, single-use packaging for soda, water and other drinks results in mountains of garbage heaping up in legal and illegal dumpsites.

Research carried out recently by the Kampala Capital City Authority indicates that Kampala generates 180 metric tonnes of plastic waste daily, but only 40% to 50% of the city’s plastic waste is collected.

“When someone buys a soda or water in a plastic bottle, after drinking it, they simply throw it anywhere.”

NEMA

According to NEMA, Uganda has a large number of water bodies that are being suffocated by plastic litter, in addition to pollution caused on land, in drainage systems, in towns, dumpsites and parks.

In 2009 and 2010, the Government enacted the Finance Act, 2009 and the Finance (Permitted Plastic Bags and Other Plastics for Exceptional Use) Regulations of 2010. The 2009 Act prohibited the importation, local manufacture, sale or use of polyethylene bags and materials.

The ban specifically affected plastic carrier bags used for the conveyance of goods.

The law did not provide for specific microns because the other permitted plastics for exceptional use may vary in microns.

The Government embarked on the enforcement of the ban in 2015 under the Finance Act 2009.

Up to 9.948 tonnes of plastic waste in Uganda is uncollected annually, according to a study conducted under the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area PET Plastic Recycling Partnership.

Eleven per cent of this ends up directly in water bodies. Stakeholders in the partnership include Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (Century and Rwenzori Bottling Company).

Global alert

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) expects annual plastic waste to reach 408 multifunctional measuring microscope (million metric tonnes) by 2040, including 380 million metric tonnes of new fossil-fuel-based plastics.

That would mean about 227 million metric tonnes of plastics would end up in the environment. The report estimates that with a range of “systems change” solutions, that pollution figure could be reduced to 41 million metric tonnes.

According to a UN report, the world must halve single-use plastics and slash consumption to stem the tide of environmental pollution.

The report noted that there was a growing concern about the impacts of plastics, with micro-plastic fragments found in humans, detected in blood, breast milk and placentas.

Say no to disposable plastic. Avoid plastic that cannot be recycled if other alternatives exist and adopt reusable items such as water bottles and shopping bags.