The Principal Investigator of the Sustainable Plastic Attitudes to Benefit Communities and their Environments (SPACES) study Richard Quilliam came to Malawi to appreciate the extent of plastic waste in the environment which he said can cause environmental and public health risks.

Quilliam is a Professor of Environment and Health at the University of Stirling in the United Kingdom. During the visit, Quilliam together with some of the SPACES study team Dr. David Oliver, Dr. Hanna White, and Dr. Michael Ormsby visited Blantyre and Chikwawa waste dumping sites.

“Plastic waste management is a very big problem in Malawi, especially in informal settlements such as Ndirande where people dump wastes along rivers and streams. Due to this, the dump sites turn into fertile breeding grounds for pathogens,” said Quilliam.

A researcher from the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS) and SPACES study team member Dr. Kondwani Chidziwitsano said the evidence to be solicited from the research will inform the formulation of effective interventions for waste management.

“I would like to sound an appeal to communities to perceive research as a development issue which requires communal intervention,” said Chidziwitsano.

Commenting on the same, Taonga Mwapasa Kumwenda a research associate from MUBAS outlined that the SPACES study is interesting because it will bring a public health perspective on waste management issues apart from economic and environmental angles that have been dominating public discourses.

Kumwenda added: “This research is of greater value because the data to be obtained will inform framing of context-specific interventions that will be effective in addressing the problem under investigation.”

The SPACES project is being implemented in Malawi and Tanzania following a similar study that took place in the UK. SPACES is a 3.8 million pounds project which is equivalent to 4.7 billion Malawi kwacha designed to generate evidence for public health risks synonymous with plastic wastes.