It is an open secret that the environment is crucial to the well being of the human family and has great and direct bearings to life. This is why NONM today participated in the commemoration of the International Day of Biodiversity and World Environment Day which were celebrated at one goal.

Guest of honour at the event, Dr. Michael Usi, minister of natural resources and climate change said the ministry is doing its best to eliminate thin plastics which have many effects on the environment, ecosystems and tourism in the country.

He said: “Malawi is our home, Malawi is our house. Just like we don’t want to litter in our houses, we don’t want anyone to litter in Malawi. Thin plastics are littered in Malawi. We don’t want to see anyone producing thin plastics in Malawi but because the issue is before the court, we cannot comment much, we can only pray that the judiciary expedite the processes so that we get the conclusion on the matter.”

“Thin plastics are destroying our tourism, you know; people come from all over the world to enjoy and see species of fish such as Mbuna in lake Malawi which is unique to Malawi, but when they dive into the water what they see are thin plastics,” he added.

Commenting on the same, Lilongwe city mayor, Esther Amina Sagawa, said lack of recycling machinery  is posing many challenges to the city council in the management of thin plastics.

She said: “Look at the sanitation around us; it has become difficult for us to manage thin plastics as we do not have machinery that will be able to recycle those thin plastics. We only see that we pick the plastics but we don’t know where they are taken to. So we may keep our cities clean but at the same time we are not conserving the environment because wherever those plastics are kept, we are killing our environment.”  

Nurses and midwives who attended the event on behalf of NONM that it is important that nurses and midwives should also pay attention to environment and biodiversity issues as they are closely related to health.

“As nurses, we are ambassadors of health. In nursing care we have a responsibility of primary health care which involves prevention, so caring for the environment is part of primary healthcare. In as far as many people or society out there think that are only about caring for the sick but it is also our responsibility to promote health. So caring for the environment is one way of promoting health because when we are talking of most of the infectious diseases that we have spread or develop because of how we have been taking care of the environment,” said Emma Chunga, NONM’s project coordinator.

“As nurses, things that affect the environment will also affect us, if we have disasters we will be the ones who will be taking care of these people. As we always say that prevention is better than cure, we need to start teaching the people to understand how to keep the environment healthful. In so doing we will also keep our population healthful and we will not have a lot of work. As nurses we have to start from the community teaching people how to prevent things that can be prevented so that we don’t strain the system,” said Fatima Ndege, Principal Nursing Officer.

 The day was commemorated under the theme, “Beat plastic pollution to build back biodiversity.”