This week, we shall continue our discussion on litter. Large Skip containers occur in Lobatse’s town centre. Here people may deposit their waste, preferably in large black refuse bags that can be bought at most supermarkets. However, these skips are open and are a target for the town’s Bo Bashi, or street kids. The skips are often not emptied on time and so become full to overflowing with trash. The kids, in their search for food scraps, throw the trash out onto the ground thus adding to the town’s litter nightmare.

Beer and other alcoholic drinks are often sold in large glass bottles made of tough thickened glass. At bars, once customers have drunk their contents, the bottles are too often simply tossed away anywhere – around the bar premises, on the road outside… But these bottles cost money to make and breweries pass on this cost to the consumer. To avoid littering in this way, perhaps revellers could pay a deposit, say P2, on top of the price of the beverage bought. This could then be refunded once the customer has finished his drink and returned the bottle. After all, glass bottles can easily be reused since all that is required is to wash them out before refilling them. In many western countries, glass banks are located along the roadside. When full, they are loaded onto the flat bed of a large truck for recycling.

Kgalagadi Breweries is a major producer of alcoholic drinks in Botswana. Their 750ml bottles are recycled, and after drinking customers may return the empty bottle and are given a refund of P1 per bottle. A by- product of making Chibuku is spent grain; this is a waste product, and rather than being thrown away can be used for livestock feed and fertilisers which can be bought by the public at subsidised prices. So, we should encourage people to collect tin cans, glass bottles and plastic bottles by offering them monetary incentives. Glass bottles may also be used in walls of buildings. Here bottle walls range from one bottle to two bottles thick and are set in concrete. At one lodge in Nata used glass bottles have been used to make walls of chalets. The City of Francistown and AMA Future of Africa recently signed an agreement to start a project aimed at sustainably managing waste as well as contributing to the socio- economic growth of the city. The project, known as Green Botswana, will set up a solid waste plant in the city that will produce plastic granules for sale to plastic manufacturers in Botswana. And in Gaborone, a proposed regional waste transfer station and waste storing station will help provide waste recovery and sorting facilities for the city and the surrounding areas.

In the UK, much is being done to solve the litter problem. Here every homeowner has wheelie bins which are strong containers for rubbish that have two small wheels so that they can be moved easily. One such bin is for general waste, whilst others are for glass bottles, paper, cardboard and tin cans. Larger waste, such as fridges, fans and freezers, can be taken to recycling plants. And garden waste can be put into composters for making compost. Clothes banks are often sited at schools; charities collect the used second- hand clothes from here and then sell them and share the revenue with the schools. The only place where I have seen wheelie bins in Botswana is outside the train station in Lobatse; here there are three such bins – one for paper, one for bottles, and one for plastic.

Eco Earth soft toys – dolls and teddy bears – are made in the UK from recycled bottles and disposable plastics. It takes about 16 plastic bottles to make one of these cuddly toys. Agricultural waste is also a growing problem in Botswana. For example, at Talana Farms in the Tuli Block, tomatoes are graded and many are rejected and so are not sold. But these lower grade tomatoes could be processed into tomato sauce if there was a processing plant in Botswana that could do this.

In the West African country of Cote D’Ivoire, mountains of agricultural byproducts are being turned into compost for fertilising fields and gas for cooking by an award- winning waste converter. The small green KubeKo box is aimed at making use of the 30 million tonnes of waste generated by crop production in this country each year as well as other biowaste such as animal dung. Some farmers may also add organic matter to the waste and then wait for about four weeks with one box capable of producing 150kg of compost a month. Using compost as a fertiliser is eco- friendly since chemical fertilisers may destroy soil structure, reduce numbers of beneficial soil microorganisms, and pollute groundwater.

The world’s textile industry produces vast amounts of clothing each year – shirts, trousers, dresses… But in doing so, large amounts of textile waste are produced. In Ghana, textile artist Michael Gah collects several large bags of textile waste each week and uses them to produce ‘ paintings’. His work has been exhibited both locally and overseas and business is flourishing.

In Nairobi, Kenya, one school physics teacher has also found an innovative way of using waste. Each day he goes around the city collecting old laptop batteries which he then reuses to power motorbikes. He also collects frames from old motorbikes and after some modifications, they are ready to hit the road. He claims that motorbikes powered by batteries are much more cost- effective than conventional motorbikes that depend on fossil fuels. He further says that to fully charge a motorbike battery after a certain distance costs under $ 3 [ less than P40], in contrast to the cost of fuel which is more than $ 7 [ P90] for the same distance. And he claims that a fully charged battery can provide enough power for up to 100 kilometres. His motorbikes are also maintenance free since they have few, if any, mechanical parts which need to be repaired. The bikes are also more environment friendly. They are, indeed, a cheap and sustainable method of transport and are used extensively by courier and delivery drivers in Nairobi.