Ninety tonnes of plastic a day dumped in Ayeyarwady
About 90 tonnes of plastic waste a day are dumped in the Ayeyarwady River and another 29 tonnes in the Yangon River, said Friedor Jeske, waste management expert at Thant Myanmar.
“Almost 90 tonnes of plastic trash go into the Ayeyarwady, mostly hard plastic materials, packing and single use foam packaging,” he said at a workshop in Nay Pyi Taw on Monday on plastic pollution in the river.
Thirty percent of the plastic waste is produced in Yangon. Villages on the Ayeyarwady dump a lot of plastic in the river, he said.
The government needs a better garbage collection and waste management system in villages and townships to solve this issue, which would cost about US$20 million per month.
There are heaps of plastic waste in the rivers, which eventually end up in the ocean.
