Plastic Odyssey Lab Awards Event : First Edition

Round table : Plastic pollution & recycling solutions in Africa and Asia

The next editions of the OnBoard Laboratory will take place internationally, starting at the end of the year in the Mediterranean basin and on the African continent. A change of scenery and stakes, which we introduced with a round-table discussion with 4 panelists. Matthieu Witvoet, Pascale Martel Naquin, Said Benhamid and Jean-Baptiste Grassin were Simon Bernard’s guests to share with the public an inventory of plastic pollution in Africa and Asia.

The objective: explore sustainable solutions that can help prevent the deluge of plastic. The stakes are high. Ninety percent of marine plastic in the world comes from coastal cities in South America, Africa and Asia.

The economy of plastic recycling

While in Europe, where plastic waste is above all considered a source of problems, the round table speakers emphasized that elsewhere in the world, plastic collection and recovery sustain whole economies. Citing his own country as an example, Saïd Benhamida – co-founder of the startup Mika, which collects and recycles plastics along the Moroccan coast – estimates that 30,000 to 40,000 waste pickers make a living from recycling in Morocco. So many people cannot be left aside. « You have to create value, develop an additional revenue stream for communities, to hold their interest in recycling. »

The solutions must also be adapted to the challenges of each country. Pascale Martel-Naquin, former director of the Francophone Center for Partnership Research on Sanitation, Waste and the Environment, knows Haiti very well from having worked there. “In Port-au-Prince, a lot of plastic waste is burned in the open air. A pyrolysis model would allow production of hydrocarbons to supply thermal power stations. But this technique also competes directly with recycling.”

Consumption of plastic is also the central issue. Matthieu Witvoet, eco-adventurer and member of Circul’R, an initiative supporting transition to a circular economy, is fighting for a systemic change to reduce plastic pollution. « We have to get to the root of the problem. We cannot simply replace plastic products with equivalents that create other environmental problems. Paper bags, for example, are based on the exploitation of forests on the other side of the world, contributing to deforestation. » « We have to avoid so-called false solutions » underscored Simon Bernard, co-founder of Plastic Odyssey. « Five billion tons of plastic are in nature today. Even if we stop production, we have to manage the current supply. »

Just back from Guinea, West Africa, Jean-Baptiste Grassin, engineer and member of Plastic Odyssey, met with Mariam Keita, an entrepreneur who wants to create a socially and economically viable recycling business from plastic waste recovery. Recovered plastic is melted, molded and transformed into recycled paver stones. « At this stage, her initiative faces obstacles scaling up, which is the only way to keep her factory going. Plastic Odyssey’s objective is to provide machines and tools to enhance her manufacturing process, and support her sales channels. » Guinea will be one of Plastic Odyssey’s expedition stopover countries.