Youth combat plastic pollution

MALAWI: The environmental damage caused by littering plastics is a critical issue, prompting Nalipiri Vision Youth Association and Vision Sanitation and Waste Management youth in Mulanje district to organize a clean-up campaign to remove plastics in the district.

On Friday, the activity included collecting thin plastics and any plastic-related litter along Chitakale Trading Center to the Mulanje District Council premises.

According to Raphael Naitha, the chairman of Vision Sanitation and Waste Management, plastics pose a threat to plant growth and animal life, necessitating the need for their project to provide long-term solutions to littering. Plastics should be recycled and reused to keep the environment clean.

“It is disheartening to see thin plastics being littered in Mulanje District and elsewhere in Malawi. As such, we thought to organise ourselves in a clean-up activity so that we collect all plastics to use for nursery tree seedling propagation, among other ways of keeping the plastics away from the environment,” said Naitha.

Lester Nanjala, Mulanje Environmental Education Coordinator for the Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi, praised the youth for caring about the environment through the clean-up campaign.

“It is pleasing to learn that the youth are organising themselves for such environmental management activities. We are going to help these youth in sustaining the initiative to ensure that we create a favourable environment for plant growth and survival of animals,” said Nanjala.

Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust and Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi are among the organizations condemning plastic littering in Mulanje District.