Ahadi Kenya Trust CEO Dr. Stanley Kamau has urged the Ministry of Education (MoE) to introduce environmental conservation and plastics recycling lessons in the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) as a strategy to fight plastic pollution in future.
Speaking at Kibabii University during the World Environment Day event themed ‘Beating Plastic Pollution’, Kamau urged the Ministry to consider his proposal affirming that it will assist the country in its initiative to increase forest cover.
“If this topic is included in the CBC syllabus, it will help Kenya fight plastic pollution by a big percentage,” he said.
Dr. Kamau called on Kenyans to be innovative and reuse and recycle old plastics.
“We should be innovative and come up with the idea of making items from the plastics, I have seen people make chairs from plastics while others produce power from garbage,” he said.
He added: “Let us also plant trees to beautify and clean up the places we stay and also heed to the President’s call of planting 15 billion trees.”
Bungoma governor Ken Lusaka said that it was imperative that people safeguard the health of our planet at this critical time when the world is stepping up efforts towards combating climate change.
“No matter how small our actions are, they can have a significant impact on the world and the communities we live in. Whether it’s how we consume products or how we use energy in our homes or work place, every decision we make impacts the environment,” he said.
He said that the World Environment Day is a reminder that people’s actions on plastic pollution matters. The steps the governments and businesses are taking to tackle plastic pollution are the consequence of this action.
“It is time to accelerate this action and transition to a circular economy. It is time to beat plastic pollution,” Lusaka said.
Lusaka reported that the plastic carrier bag ban was 85% successful in the county while the national average is about 95% which is commendable bearing in mind that Bungoma is a border county.
“The 15% failure is due to its proximity to the neighboring country where the use of these bags is not outlawed,” he said.
Lusaka pointed out that he has gazetted the County Environment Committee which brings together all environmental conservation players in the county, adding that he has put in place climate change committees in all the 45 wards across the County.
Dr. David Abwoga, the group Director Finance of the National Commercial Bank of Africa (NCBA) said that the group joined other key players at Kibabii University in Bungoma County to plant trees as a strategy to attain the President’s call of planting 15 billion trees.
“Citizenship is a social license to operate and helps us get involved in the lives of our communities in order to ensure what matters to them is what matters to us and one of the key pillars in our citizenship agenda is environment and natural resources,” Abwoga said.
He added, “In 2018 the country embarked on a journey to attain 10% forest cover and then we did set a target by 2022, at NCBA we joined hands under the theme ‘Change the Story’ and we have managed to plant 7,000,000 trees together with other stakeholders.”
Bungoma County Forest Conservator George Wara said that so far the county has planted over 1 million trees against a target of 2 million trees and during that day, they had planted 20,000 seedlings.
Wara called on other environment stakeholders to join forces and plant trees on the over 4,000 acres of degraded land in the Mt. Elgon ecosystem.
By Our Reporter
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