Friday, February fourteenth, the UN says at least 22 people have been killed in a village in the Northwest region of Cameroon. Over half of those killed were children. No one has claimed responsibility for Friday’s incident but the opposition parties blame the killing on the government.
Cameroon recycle plastic waste to jobs
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Retired Cameroonian footballer Roger Milla is already famous for being the oldest goal scorer - at age 42 - in World Cup history. And now the footballer is proving an unlikely hero in Cameroon's struggle against climate change-related flooding.
A project by his organisation Coeur d'Afrique (Heart of Africa), which aids abandoned children, is helping lessen the damage to the country's flood-prone political capital while also fighting youth unemployment - all by just picking up some plastic.
Over the past two
years, Yaounde's population of over 3 million has suffered some of the worst
flooding on record. But nature isn't solely to blame, say experts. Part of the
problem is the plastic waste clogging up rivers and blocking gutters.
"Heavy and
prolonged rains cause floods, but reckless human activities are as much to
blame for aggravating the flooding," said David Payang, sub-director for
conservation at the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable
Development.
Last
year, Coeur d'Afrique started paying young people to collect plastic litter, to
cut down on pollution and unblock the gutters. The second part of the project
sees the plastic recycled into slabs that can be used for construction.
With a single
initiative, the organisation aims to help solve four of Cameroon's major
problems - youth unemployment, plastic waste pollution, flooding, and
non-sustainable building - at once.
FROM POLLUTION TO
CONSTRUCTION
Cameroon's
government has been trying to tackle the country's plastic waste troubles for
years, with little success.
Cheaper than
other alternatives, plastic bags and bottles are popular in a place where the
average income is less than 500 Central African francs (cfa) ($5) a day, and
laws aimed at curbing the use and sale of disposable plastics have been
ineffective.
"We cannot
do without these plastics because they are affordable and government has not
provided any alternative," Albert Eko, a teacher in Yaounde, told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation.
But the plastic
items often wind up tossed into the streets of the capital city, making their
way to gutters and waterways. The River Mfoundi canal, which was constructed
about four years ago as a major route to drain away floodwater, is now
regularly blocked by plastic waste, say city authorities.
In
a collaboration between local councils and garbage-collection company Hysacam,
Coeur d'Afrique employs over 300 youths in various flood-prone Yaounde
neighbourhoods to regularly collect plastic from garbage cans, gutters and
streams. They work three days a week for 2,500 cfa ($5) a day.
"I am happy
with the job, it provides me with some income to support my daily living,"
said Julius Ngwe, 25, who is part of the plastic-collecting crew in Etouge-ebe
Yaounde.
The waste is
picked up by Hysacam and sorted, then another group of young people - different
from those collecting the plastic - melt it down in a large tank over a wood
fire. They later add sand to the molten plastic and pour the hot mixture into
moulds.
The process
doesn't need water and the slabs set and dry at room temperature within 15
minutes, as opposed to the 24 hours it takes conventional sand-and-cement-based
products, according to the head of the project's technical team, Pierre
Kamssouloum.
The plastic slabs
are cheaper than conventional concrete slabs, costing 3,500 cfa ($5.40) per
square meter compared to 5,000 cfa ($8.50).
And, approved as
sustainable by the country's National Civil Engineering Laboratory, they are
"environmentally friendly and waterproof," said Samuel Nguiffo,
executive director of the NGO the Centre for Environment and Development,
meaning they can also be used in marshy areas and in the building of septic
tanks.
The recycled
slabs have already been used by the Yaounde city council for various projects
and by the National Olympic sports committee in the construction of the
national handball field, officials say.
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The Sûreté du Québec announced Wednesday the arrest of an alleged fraudster specialist of a scenario called "Black money scam", in which victims are invited to participate in the cleaning of soiled banknotes, then are robbed during the operation. Cyrille Ngogang, 49 years old, was caught red-handed in downtown Montreal Tuesday afternoon. He appeared in court this morning to be charged with fraud and breach of commitment. The man is not in his first trouble with the law: he was previously arrested by the SQ on 19 January for charges related to the same scheme, and had been able to resume its freedom under strict conditions pending his trial. There are several variants of the 'Black money' scenario, but all involve a so-called batch of cash that has been stained with a dye or colouring substance. Scammers ask their victim to provide money to clean the hoard.
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