Waste Management: Government Seeks To Create Clearing House

By Victorine BIY NFOR, Cameroon Tribune

The Minister of Environment, Protection of Nature and Sustainable Development organized an inter-sector meeting in Yaounde yesterday.

 Representatives of public

administration and local governments, industrialists producing large quantities of waste, companies and institutions with environmental permits and representatives of stock exchange met in Yaounde yesterday August 11, 2016, to discuss ways of putting in place a clearing house for trading in waste.

The one-day get-together was chaired by the Minister of Environment, Protection of Nature and Sustainable Development, Hele Pierre. He stated that Cameroon’s waste potential was huge, evaluated at 6 million tons annually. Improving livelihoods through job creation and income generation, health through sustainable waste management, jumpstarting growth through competitiveness as well as avoiding floods and pollution through sane environmental practice call for the putting in place of a National Waste Exchange, the Minister said.

He explained that the platform, when created, will serve as a link between waste suppliers and customers which in this case are mostly companies that recycle and give waste a second life. The experience of countries across the world and even Africa like Rwanda, Côte d’Ivoire and Morocco is worth experimenting, with Environment Minister stressing that the putting in place of such a structure in Cameroon was indispensable. The Yaounde reflections were based on the modalities, creation and functioning of a National Waste Exchange. Devising an institutional and legal policy that guide such a platform was also under discussion.