Cameroon's Bottle Boats | earthrise
Every year, up to 12 million metric tonnes of plastic waste enters our oceans. And this is set to triple in the next decade. In Cameroon's economic capital Douala, the scale of the plastic problem is clear. Some 1,300 tonnes are generated every day, and so much of it is thrown into the city's rivers that you can't see any trace of water. But one local man, Ishmael Essome, has made it his mission to deal with it head on. Together with a small team of volunteers, they collect used plastic bottles, build them into boats, and give them to local fishermen who cannot afford to buy boats themselves. "There is no recycling system here in Cameroon. Our politicians have other problems, other priorities," Essome says. " People are poor. No one cares about the environment." From a fishing community himself, Essome says "Because pollution affected the river, now you cannot catch fish... the fishing area is full of plastic." Essome thought up the idea of eco-boats as a way to help clean the rivers and provide cheaper fishing boats to the community. His plan shows that by reimagining waste as a resource, we can begin to redress some of the negative effects of pollution. "This is the most urgent problem," Essome says. "So we need to change policy and manage waste." - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/