Garbage is not a problem only of the Western world. It is also a problem of developing countries that consume more and more and so produce more waste. It is the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo and its capital, Kinshasa, third metropolitan area in Africa after Cairo and Lagos.Once was dubbed Kin-la-belle (Kinshasa the beautiful) for its care and cleanliness, but today is a kind of hell on earth, surrounded by a suburb area of barracks with a population that grows on demand and with rubbish and plastic bags all over the streets. So its nickname has changed, and today is Kin-la-poubelle (Kinshasa the dustbin). Alone it produces about 250 tonnes of waste each day: a quantity of plastic bags which often block drains and canals.
Animals graze in the city center eating waste and only rain can stop the smell and the black smoke of burning waste. Life expectancy, even for the little care with which the problem of waste is managed, is only of 44 years.
A young city which together with Brazzaville, the political capital of the Republic which lies on the other side of the river, could get to host 25 million people by 2020.
A catastrophic number when you consider the amount of waste that 25 million people produce. So in May of this year, the Congolese ecologist Party has launched a campaign entitled "A kilo of plastic bags for a dollar" that in a month has brought 200 people to collect 15 tons of non-biodegradable bags.
As often happens, unfortunately, those who bring a kilo of plastic bags receive only a quarter of a dollar, but the Congolese have started in the collection, anyway. In this country, potentially rich, 58 million people living below the poverty threshold and so the collection of plastic bags may be useful to round off the two euros maximum amount that you earn per day.
The party has launched this campaign has repeatedly called upon the government to solve the problem of plastic bags. "The Government's indifference towards those who live in the suburbs, the socio-economic difficult situation of the country and the absence of a collective conscience" are by Leonard Mwambo Kanda, secretary of Peco and creator of the project, the causes of environmental degradation in the capital.
The government had tried to resolve this problem, in 2008, allocating less than 6 billion Congolese francs and giving a joint enterprise (Congolese-German) the disposal of recycling waste. But the company has preferred to cut down the trees that were on the road rather than clean it from the waste, and then sell them on the booming market of the timber. According to environmentalists all this commerce could have let this industry earn 2 million dollars.
Fortunately, people, overwhelmed by hunger, is succeeding where the government remains powerless. But because without their help, the Congo would be much more polluted, you could at least hope that the government can give in exchange for cleaning the longed-one dollar, which could change lives of poor people.
La problématique de la gestion des déchets dans la ville de Kinshasa from Acpcongo
Marianna Lepore
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