The Côte d’Ivoire Hospitals Programme is making important contributions to Target 12.5 of Sustainable development Goal 12. SDG 12 is ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’, aiming to “ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns”. Within SDG 12, Target 12.5 aims to “Substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse”.
Plastic waste and plastic pollution is a big problem in Côte d’Ivoire, as it is around the world. 288 tonnes of plastic waste are produced each day in Abijdan alone and 5% of that is currently recycled (UNICEF, 2019). Throughout Côte d’Ivoire drinking water is sold in hand sized plastic sachets. Despite it being illegal in Côte d’Ivoire to sell water in sachets, challenges accessing safe drinking water and their comparatively cheap cost means that these water sachets are ubiquitous. This practice brings with it an attendant litter problem; sadly in many places these discarded plastic sachets blight the Ivorian landscape.
At the Kouto General Hospital site, NMSI has taken action to alleviate this problem. Through the leadership of the NMSI Site Manager Rimah Daher, the use and consumption of plastic water sachets on site has been banned. Instead, workers on site now access drinking water either from a daily delivery of several large water containers, or by reusing their water bottles to fill up from the SODECI (the national water utility company) water tap on site, newly installed for the project. As a result of the new system, the site is now completely clear of the plastic water sachets.
By limiting the flow of plastic on the site and shifting to a more circular model, NMSI is preventing and reducing the amount of plastic waste generated on site while encouraging re-use of existing plastic containers. This initiative will reduce the environmental degradation and human health impacts caused by plastic waste, micro-plastics, and the potentially harmful chemicals that these contain.
