(Kribi) “We can use the bottles and recycle them”: to raise awareness of the problem of plastic waste and pollution of marine environments, an NGO in Cameroon collected bottles washed up in Kribi, a seaside resort in the south of the country, to sculpt a 12 meter long plastic whale.
Impossible to take a step without falling on a plastic bottle on Ngoye beach, the most frequented by tourists who flock every weekend.
About twenty young volunteers, Cameroonians and foreigners, walk along the coast, for about 2 km, to rid this sandy beach of abandoned soft drink and water bottles.
The plastic bottles collected on this shore of the Atlantic Ocean are used to sculpt a giant whale, an initiative of an NGO for the preservation of the marine environment in Africa, the African marine mammal conservation organization (Ammco). “These plastic bottles must not pollute the environment but be valued, in particular for making artistic works”, explains Eddy Nnanga, coordinator of Ammco.
On the beach, a welder assembles irons to form the framework of a whale, 12 meters long. Several volunteers join him, gradually covering this sculpture with plastic bottles. The whale required 2,000 bottles and more than five hours of collection by the volunteers, according to Mr. Nnanga.
“It is an artistic work to make people, fishermen and communities understand that there are whales in Cameroon, in Kribi, and that everything must be done to protect them because they have an important role. in the oceans, ”he says.
Cameroon, a Central African country of about 27 million inhabitants, produces some 6 million tonnes of waste every year, including 600,000 tonnes of plastic. And only 20% is recycled, part of it ending up in the waters bordering the country.
Raoul Tuekam is applied to the task. This teacher – researcher at the University of Bamenda, in the English-speaking northwest, grabs a plastic bottle before throwing it in a bag. Present in Kribi for a conference on marine pollution, he participates in this operation because “the pollution due to plastic waste is enormous”. “We are also trying to sensitize the populations to tell them that this waste constitutes a threat to the sea”, he explains, in particular at “the level of fish production which is declining”.
Arrived in Cameroon three months ago for a job within the NGO Ammco, Roflane Nabil, also participates in the cleaning, dragging a bag full of bottles. “I am Tunisian, but I can protect nature everywhere, if we conserve an area, that means we conserve the whole planet. Everything is connected, everything is connected, ”she says.