Angola establishes a task force to draft an anti-plastic law

In a presidential decree published in the Jornal de Angola, João Lourenço explained that there are “worrying levels of pollution resulting from the use of plastic in general”.

To hasten the fight against plastic wastes president Lourenço has established a working group to draft a national plan to ban plastic.

The text specifies that the working group will initially be responsible for carrying out a national diagnosis to “measure the state of pollution” in the country.

In Angola, 12.4 million plastic bags are distributed for free every day in trade, said the head of the National Solid Waste Agency.

Angola has a 1,600-kilometre coastline and plastic pollution is a real threat to aquatic ecosystems.

Last year, the head of the National Solid Waste Agency said that a total of 12.4 million plastic bags are distributed free of charge every day in Angola in commercial exchanges

According to the UN, more than 800 marine and coastal species are affected by plastic pollution through ingestion and entanglement, while about 11 million tonnes of plastic waste are dumped into the ocean every year. The UN warns that this figure could triple by 2040.

By Africanews