KISUMU, Kenya, June 5 – A mobile App (M-Taka), has been developed in Kisumu to help the local residents to manage their plastic waste, which has been blamed for polluting Lake Victoria.
The plastic waste management app has become inevitable for the rising level of plastic presence, which has continued to litter the lakeside city.
Benson Abila, the managing director of Taka says the app is the first of its kind in Western Kenya.
Abila says the app will give locals an opportunity to sign up and receive local waste management services.
“The goal of the app is to ensure that we bridge the gap in access to recycling,” he said.
He says they will station their agents in every corner of the city to be able to reach out to clients who will be willing to give out their plastic waste for recycling.
Speaking in Kisumu on Monday as they joined the world in celebrating World Environment Day, Abila announced that the country only recycles 8 percent of its plastic waste.
Abila noted that their initiative will push the low recycling percentage to greater heights.
“We are ready to push it to 100 percent and we are here to sensitize the residents on the need to wipe out plastics amidst us,” he said.
He noted that mind change will ensure that recycling culture is cultivated in the society.
Stela Kamwasir, the Nyanza regional director National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) officer says the initiative is the surest way to stop plastic bottles from entering the lake.
“We want to thank M-Taka for the innovation that they have taken, but it is a connectivity to the producers of waste up to the once that are recycling,” she said.
Kamwasir says through sensitization, locals must be encouraged not to adopt the use and dump of plastic materials, but use and prevent it from returning to the environment in a bad way.
In recent studies, fish samples in the Winam Gulf were found to have contained micro-plastics.
In 2017, the country introduced the gradual ban of plastics, with an extension of the ban to outlaw usage of single-use plastics in protected areas.
