Day 13 - The Plague of Plastic
On my second Saturday in Chikwawa I decided to go on a little field trip with 4 interns from the non-profit I was volunteering for, Development Network Initiative (DIN) Malawi. Due to meet at 8.30am, I walked the 15 minutes along the sandy road through the village, past a soccer field and a huge baobab tree, up to the bustling intersection. This walk is always my favourite part of each day as I get to have these micro interactions with the community. Random kids constantly pop out from their homes and shout “HIIIIIIII!” and it’s like playing a game of Where’s Wally to spot where the giddy greeting came from.
Along the way I also pass swathes of plastic littered around the place. It all sits in these neat little sections off the pathway, almost acting like a replacement for grass or shrubbery. I spot the usual suspects – bottles and cartons, chip packets, the odd sandal – but the main culprit is these little blue sandwich sized bags that flap in the breeze.
I recall a moment last week when a guy buy a bottled yoghurt, a popular drink here in Malawi, and the cashier put it in one of those blue bags. The bag doesn’t even have a handle, negating any excuse for an improved customer experience, so my mind boggles as I wonder what is the point? Why can no one see that they are so useless? Then I think back to all the times in Aus where I saw well-educated people, with absolutely no excuses for ignorance, still using plastic bags for their bananas or to simply carry 2 items back to their car. Alas, so many of us remain utterly oblivious, no matter which side of the globe we’re on.
By 9am we were all squeezed into a crowded bus and ready for the 2 hour ride up to Blantyre. It wasn’t an entirely relaxing journey as the door of the boot was struggling to close – at one point it flew open mid drive and a bunch of cargo fell out - meaning the bus boys had to forcefully slam it shut sometimes 8 or 9 times each time it was opened. At one point we were stopped at a check point and I naively assumed it was due to the poor state of the bus, but no, they just pointed out something random and asked for a bribe. All good, carry on.
I’d announced to the group that this would be a cute little ‘Plastic Free’ trip and asked them to bring a spare bag – plastic or otherwise – in case they wanted to buy anything. They happily obliged which was cool to see. We were off to a good start. I bought us some little fried donuts that cost 8 cents a pop and the group laughed at me as I rejected the man’s little blue bag, opting instead for a paper bag I had with me. If the minds of my fellow Australians couldn’t be easily reformed despite the constant exposure to anti-plastic campaigns, I was under no illusion that any lessons from me would change the deeply entrenched habits here in Malawi. Even still, I hoped that this more hands-on experience might create little spark inside these young minds.
It was hard not to be disheartened walking through streets covered with crap, passing people who try to covertly drop their waste, as though if they look the other direction then it didn’t really happen. I was overwhelmed trudging through the market, just looking at all of the stuff. Gadgets and trinkets and bits and pieces. What got me the most was those squishy sandals that have become very popular. There was mounds of them for sale every which way I turned. My brain was in overdrive trying to do the maths…if there’s at least 20 million people in this country who all own at least one pair, plus all the ones for sale and the ones already discarded somewhere…How many is that? How many pairs exist around the entire of Africa? Around the whole world? No doubt there are already billions of these “pillow slides” chilling somewhere on earth, even though they’ve only been in production a few years. I guess the trendy sandal is here to stay as they will never, ever breakdown.
We had a busy morning traipsing around looking for crochet needles, wool and some kind of rope-esque material to make bracelets. I thought it would be cool to saddle the interns with some skills and materials so that they could teach the HIV support groups to make things to sell. I thought if I could provide the start-up material then it could be a source of income for many of the individuals that I know are going hungry. A kind of micro-finance, if you will. Fortunately we were successful on our quest and could head back home.
On the bus back, I began reflecting on what I’d seen. I asked if there was a garbage service. “Only in the cities”, they responded. Mmmm, of course. I asked what they do with their plastic in that case. “We burn it”, they replied nonchalantly. Shit. They burn their plastic and then breathe in the fumes? “Yes, but we do it outside so it’s okay”. Damn, okay. Shit. I knew that people burned plastic but I guess I hadn’t comprehended that it was like, all the time. I was dumbfounded. That meant that there was only 3 places the plastic was going: onto the streets, into the rivers or into the atmosphere/our lungs. Allllll that plastic that I see going round and round each and every day…it has no where to go, the people have to deal with it themselves.
Then the reality check truly sunk in. I myself had generated plastic since being here and it was quietly being dealt with in one of those 3 ways by the family. Shit. My plastic consumption – mostly wrappers from cookies or chocolate (a result of the privilege of being able to eat my feelings) – was being made someone else’s problem to get rid of. It disappeared from my vicinity and I never bothered to think where it went after that.
But wait…shit…isn’t that what happens every single time, no matter where I am? At home I throw something in the bin, put the bin out on Sunday and “poof”, the garbage is magically gone. In reality though, I’ve just made my waste someone else’s responsibility. All of my garbage still exists somewhere back in Australia, hopefully buried underground but I don’t actually have a clue where it is. I may be a respectable citizen of the Global North, disposing of my waste “responsibly” but in truth, my waste being tossed into a bin rather than on the naked earth really doesn’t earn me the moral high ground.
This piece is part of an ongoing series, ‘Musings in Malawi’, where I reflect on the effects of poverty, colonisation, climate change and more, in one of Africa’s poorest regions, Chikwawa. I am here volunteering for an incredible non-profit, DIN Malawi, and raising funds to help empower HIV/AIDS effected groups. Please consider donating to provide food security and income generation for some of Malawi’s most stigmatised.