Community Participation to Reduce Accumulation of Plastic Bags ( A Case Study in Al - Khums City , Libya )

1. By : Naser Ali Alhderi Supervisors AgusHadiyarto, MT HartutiPurnaweni Community Participation to Reduce Accumulation of Plastic Bags (A Case Study in Al-KhumsCity , Libya )

2. Background • Plastic bags are highly convenient, strong and inexpensive. The bags are appealing to both customers and businesses as a reliable way to deliver goods from the shop to home. • Plastic bags is made from petroleum by-products. • Plastic bags take around hundreds of years to decompose. • Plastic bags are becoming a major environmental concern. • Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the gases that contribute to global warming. • Per kg of plastic, about 6 kg carbon dioxide is created during • The standard thickness specification of plastic bags is seven Micros. • Releasing harmful gases such as chlorine and carbon dioxide when incinerated. • The cattle and cows eating plastic bags encountered during their grazing exposes the animals to disease and death. • Shoppers worldwide are using around 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags per year. (Greenwire, Environment and Energy Publishing LLC. July 22, 2004). This translates to about a million bags every minute across the globe or around 150 bags a year for every person on earth. And the number is rising • The carbon footprint of plastic (LDPE or PET, poyethylene) is about 6 kg CO2 per kg of plastic. If you know the weight of your plastic bags, you can multiply it with the number of plastic bag you are using per year. Then you can easily calculate the carbon dioxide emitted by your own usage of plastic bags

3. Objectives • To identify plastic bags use in shops in Al-khums City. • To study the accumulation of plastic bags waste in the environment. • To study people’s awareness about the accumulation of plastic bags use in the environment. • To study how to reduce the plastic bags use in the community. • To study CO2 emissions during their lifetime in the Al-khums city

4. Al-khums city • Al-khums City is situated about 120 km east of the Libyan capital Tripoli. • The city of Al-khums’ economy depends especially on its port which is among the best ports in Libya. • It has also the olive cultivation industry as well as two cement factories. • It has both the mountainous regions and beautiful beaches with the marina for fishing that attract tourists from everywhere.

5. Location of Al-khums

6. Theoretical framework Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) • Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) describes learning in terms of the interrelationship between behavior factories , environmental factors, and personal factors. • SCT is based on understanding an individual’s reality construct, it is especially useful when applied to interventions aimed at personality development Environment factors:- 1-Plastic bags used in shops. 2-The accumulation of plastic bags waste on the environment. 3-People awareness the accumulation of plastic bags use to environment. 4- Minimizing of plastic bags usedin the community . Cognitive factors :-( Personal factors) 1-Knowledge about plastic bags use 2- Attitudes about plastic bags use Behavior factor:- 1-Practice in the usage and sale of plastic bags in the city. 2-Behavior change in plastic bags use.

7. Phenomena in Al-khums city • Plastic bags used in shops. The indicators are: • Quantity of plastic bags use. • Type of plastic bags. • The accumulation of plastic bags waste in the environment. The indicators are: • The amount of plastic bags waste in the city . • Location of plastic bags waste. • People’s awareness of the accumulation of plastic bags waste in the environment. The indicators are: • People understanding the impact of plastic bags to the environment. • People taking action to minimize. • Minimizing of plastic bags used in the community. The indicator is: • Ways to minimize plastic bags use.

8. Plastic Bags Used in Al-khums City • CO2 emissions during their lifetime from the factory is 432,000 Kg , shop owner is 6,480Kg , customer and public are 69.984Kg per year in Al-khums cit. • The families who live in Al-khums City used around 238,204,800 plastic bags every year or 3,240 plastic bags per person. The number is very shockingly high compared to the world average of 150 bags per person. • This means that the people in Al-khums city used more than twenty times as many plastic bags as other people in the world. Maybe this is because the plastic bags were very cheap. Another factor is the fact that the majority of plastic bags used in stores were of the sub standard thickness thus made the bags to tear very easily • Thus there is a gap of knowledge in the people about the problem of plastic bags’ sub-standard production and use if we refer to the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) model. Efforts must be taken to bring this knowledge to the entire community so that they will stop using sub-standard plastic bags. • The central government needs to step in and implement a rule throughout the country on this issue, especially on the implementation of standard thickness in plastic bags production. All plastic bags used in shops must have at least seven Micros in thickness.

9. Accumulation of Plastic Bags in The City • The amount of plastic disposed from the shops in the Al-khums City every year is around 17,884,080, and from the families around 117,632,000 plastic bags. • the accumulation will only increase and make many problems around the city; not just to the environment problem but also to the state's economy, because even though people use it only for trivial things, plastic bags require huge energy for producing them. • Plastic bags take too much time to decompose. If accumulation rate remains like this, the city will be full of plastic bags. Most of plastic bags simply stay on the streets, the city center and around shops. It is absolutely everywhere. Their spread and accumulation in these places of the city have created many problems such as killing the animals, clogging the sewage, flying around in the air and changing the appearance of the land. • discrepancy against the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) model is found here. Efforts were not being taken to address the issue of plastic bags waste accumulation in the city even though the consumers and public in the city know the harmful effects that plastic bags waste can have on the environment.

10. People’s awareness about accumulation of plastic bags • there is a big gap between the factory on one side and the shop owners, customers and public on the other side about their understanding of the impacts of plastic bags accumulation in the environment. • The factory producing the plastic bags has basically turned a blind eye on the impact that their product can have on the environment. • Referring to the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) model, we can see here the personal, behavior and environment factors of the customers and public of Al-khums City had given them a better awareness towards the issue of plastic bags accumulation. • What we can conclude here is that even though people of Al-khums City are basically aware with the problem of plastic bags accumulation, government’s role in this matter is still very much required. A campaign to increase the knowledge of people regarding the negative effects that plastic bags have on the environment should be enhanced. People should all be aware that plastics bags waste can do much harm to the animals and the environment. • The city government needs to take action to solving this issue by creating a standard regulation on plastic bags production to make sure that plastic bags factories produce bags with more than 7 Microns in thickness. This would prevent the bags from flying around easily in the air and spreading all over the city. Thus the plastic bags will be easier to collect, reuse, recycle as well as preventing the animals from eating them.

11. Minimizing the use of plastic bags in the community • Even though the factory knows the concept of reduce, reuse and recycle and is willing to reuse the plastic bags waste, the fact that there is currently no efficient way of collecting the plastic bags waste by the city government to be reused and recycled makes the waste remains unused. • The factory also resisted the idea of minimizing the use of plastic bags because that would threaten its business. The resistance is there also because the factory does not have any idea or means of producing plastic bags alternative. • The shop owners know the alternative to plastic bags. They cited paper bags and clothes bags as possible substitute. The problem is they cannot have any of the substitutes because no one is producing them. Even though only half of them know the concept of reduce, reuse and recycle, most of them agree to minimize the plastic bags use. • The problem however, lies in the fact that the shops simply do not provide the alternatives. Almost all of customers know the concepts of reuse, reduce and recycle, but because the plastic bags waste is not collected separately, the effort to reuse it becomes difficult.

12. Cont • The response from the community to minimize plastic bags use is therefore mostly positive. However, this effort will not happen if the city government does not act to provide the alternative. There are several things that the city government can do about it: 1] The city government should start separating plastic bags waste from other wastes to manage it better for reuse and recycling. 2] The city government should also help plastic bags producer to get the materials, expertise and equipment needed to produce plastic bags alternatives such as paper bags or clothes bags efficiently. 3] Afterwards they need to make sure also that every shop provides alternative to plastic bags. 4] The last thing the city government should do is to impose tax on plastic bags to make them more expensive to discourage everyone even further from using plastic bags.

13. Conclusion • The study showed that each plastic bags factory in Al-khums city produced around 20,000,000 of plastic bags in one year. They produced 7 types of plastic bags from one Micro to seven Micros in twelve colours, and showed CO2 emissions during their lifetime from the factory is 432,000 Kg , shop owner is 6,480Kg , customer and public are 69.984Kg per year • The shop owners used around 11,512,080 bags in one year with 3 types of plastic bags from one Micro to three Micros in7 colours. • The customers used around 3240 bags in 7 types from one to seven Micros with 9 colours. The public used around 3240 bags in one year in 7 types from one to seven Micros with 9 different colours. • With all these bags used in Al-khums city in one year but without any effective measure to deal with their accumulation, problems thus then appeared in the city, such as animals dying after they ate the plastic bags , the clogging of sewage and the changing of appearance of the city landscape. • The underlying problem of the accumulation of plastic bags in the city was because plastic bags were continued to be produced and widely used by the community in large quantity without any meaningful efforts taken to address the issue.

14. Cont • Plastic bags are very difficult to decompose naturally. Thus the best way to deal with the problem is to minimize their use in the community. It is the responsibility of everyone in the community to deal with the problem. It is good to know however that most people in the community were aware about the problem; how long would it take for plastic bags to decompose naturally, the harmful effects they could have on the animals and the environment as well as other disadvantages. • The awareness that the community in Al-khums had about the problem of plastic bags accumulation in the environment had made them willing also to change their behavior in depending only on plastic bags in their daily life.

15. Recommendation 1. The government should help the factories with the materials to make the plastic bags’ alternatives 2. The government should make a regulation for shops to provide alternatives of plastic bags and impose taxes to make plastic bags become more expensive. 3. Control the factory in the manufacturing of plastic bags so that each plastic bag produced is up to the standard thickness of seven Micros. 4. Put special garbage bins for plastic bags waste to make collection easier for recycling.

16. Thank you