06 Jul 2016

Francistown City regional coordinator with Departmental Waste Management and Pollution Control Ms Keeletsang Lesaba has said Francistown City is aimed at recycling waste plastic to produce diesel.

She said this when briefing Francistown Council on Tuesday at a special full council.

 Ms Lesaba said all around the globe companies and individuals were starting to produce fuel from waste plastic, calling on the sity dwellers to stop polluting the environment with plastic, and start collecting all plastics suitable for this new fairly simple technology, a technology that was available now at Ghetto Plastoil.

She explained that the project was viable; therefore they proposed for it to be a monopoly in Botswana, adding that by doing so, they hoped to acquire a patent for the project because observation showed that in Botswana when one started a business there was always duplication which made business at large not to continue or serve the purpose it was intended. “The company also aims at promoting at source segregation of waste,” she said.

Further Ms Lesaba said during National Development Plan 10, Botswana like the global village was hard hit by the global financial downturn and due to financial constraints faced by government to finance proposed projects from the community of Francistown it resorted to prioritising projects and programmes to be implemented.

She noted that Social assistance programmes among others were put in place to support human development and assist people to access opportunities to exit poverty.

She however, said the community is now dependent on government hand-outs and is losing any inclination to improve their circumstances as a result of them being raised from time to time. 

The City of Francistown has now strategized to implement the project.

Ms Lesaba mentioned that in Botswana they rely mostly in imports and diesel being one of the things that Botswana imports from neighbouring countries noting that it is one commodity that is used by many sectors and individuals within the country to do various things such as run vehicles, boreholes, tractors just to mention but a few.

Furthermore she said as it was common, plastic was one commodity contributing to environmental pollution especially in the City of Francistown since its disposal was not effective. 

“Many use it and throw it away, wind will see where to take it, and to others they never even think about at least reusing it for packaging again when shopping.”

Meanwhile she said landfills were not able to reach their lifespan because every kind of waste was disposed there, however waste can be reused and recycled. 

The project will also encourage the community to keep the environment clean and safe by collecting all unused plastics suitable for the project. ENDS