In the Ocean: Senegal’s Plastic Waste Problem

Senegal is many things: birthplace of famous holy men, the Tirailleurs Sénégalais, Négritude poets, Afrocentric historians, and international footballers; site of a monument taller than Christ the Redeemer; and an African country that avoided the worst of the pandemics of HIV and COVID-19. It is also one of the world’s biggest producers of ocean plastic waste. On its beaches, except those of the most elite ocean resorts catering to the Senegalese well-to-do and European tourists, one cannot miss the evidence of Senegal’s rank of twenty-first biggest ocean polluter in the world (Roy 2019).

News coverage of this issue emphasizes many reasons for the crisis of ocean plastic in Senegal: the ubiquitous use of plastic sachets for drinking water and plastic cups for drinking tea; the use of thin polythene bags by shopkeepers; tourists disposing of plastic packaging; increased importation of products packaged in nonbiodegradable containers; lack of education about littering among the Senegalese public; and lack of waste-management infrastructure (Bothma 2019; Hammerschlag 2019; Magoum 2021; Roy 2019; Yaah 2018). The overall impression is that Senegalese culture and commerce lend themselves to the overuse of plastics, especially since the Senegalese economy has many low-income consumers, who can pay for their staple goods only on a day-by-day basis. Buying small amounts daily expands exponentially the plastic packaging of these goods. Further, these reports portray most Senegalese as unaware of the concept of littering and unbothered by the plastic waste around them. Some Senegalese environmental advocates have voiced these sentiments to the press. Babacar Thiaw, a business and restaurant owner, has often been highlighted by media outlets for his championing of a zero-waste program in partnership with Zero Waste Senegal (Africanews 2019; Hammerschlag 2019; Magoum 2021; Roy 2019).¹ He has described the plastic waste problem as “People are just throwing, throwing, throwing” (Hammerschlag 2019).

Despite these economic realities and media impressions, Senegal does not consume more plastic per capita than many other countries. In 2010, Senegalese people generated 0.1 kilograms of plastic waste per person per day and a total of 485,586 tons of plastic waste—which is not in the top hundred and compares favorably to the United States, at 0.34 kilos (Ritchie and Roser 2018).² As of 2021, Senegal’s population is a little over seventeen million (sixty-ninth in population in the world), with a population density of about eighty-nine people per square kilometer, and yet its ocean plastic waste rivals that of the United States, with a population of 329 million (third in the world) and ranked twentieth in ocean pollution (Jambeck et al. 2015).³ So the use of enormous amounts of small plastic sachets, teacups, straws, bottles, and packaging by the Senegalese population and businesses is not the reality at the heart of its ocean plastic problem. While fully eliminating the creation of plastic sources is the ultimate solution, zero plastic waste is not a reality in most countries, even those with lower rates of ocean plastic waste. Senegal does not capture, contain, and export its plastic waste as effectively as the United States. In fact, since 2018, it has imported some of Americans’ plastic waste. According to a 2019 Guardian report, the United States exports one million tons of plastic waste overseas every year. Since China closed its borders to most US plastic waste in 2017 and Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam followed suit in 2018, US plastic waste has been exported to countries already overwhelmed with their own plastic, including Senegal (McCormick et al. 2019). With better waste disposal and management, a much smaller population, and lower rates of plastic waste per person, Senegal could greatly reduce its ocean plastic problem.

If individuals in Senegal want to do better by the ocean and the environment, disposing of waste in general and plastic specifically in a more environmentally friendly way is not easy. Dakar, Senegal’s capital and largest city, “does not have any professional sanitary disposal sites” and 70 percent of its solid waste goes into unauthorized sites (GFDRR, n.d.). It has...