STATEMENT BY THE RT HON PRIME MINISTER
DR B.S.S.DLAMINI
AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION INDABA ON THE COMMEMORATION OF WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 2013.
AT THE ROYAL SWAZI SPA, CONVENTION CENTRE
WEDNESDAY 5 JUNE 2013
Programme Director
Honourable Ministers
Honourable Members of Both Houses of Parliament
UNDP Resident Representative & Resident Co-ordinator
Board Members and CEOs of Participating Institutions
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
It is a great pleasure for me to be with all to commemorate World Environment Day for 2013.
It is once more that time of the year where the whole world meets to rekindle the Environmental awareness spirit that was initiated in 1972 in Stockholm, Sweden where the World Conference on Human and the Environment was held. It is a day for commemorating the global need for positive environmental action.
As usual, the main objective is to raise awareness on critical environmental challenges facing us, and to review and re-examine what causes those challenges, what we can do to address them, and whether we can do better.
The theme for this year’s World Environment Day is “Think. Eat. Save,” essentially a slogan to motivate the world to avoid wasting food.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), every year 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted. This is equivalent to the same amount produced in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. Aside from the moral implications of such wastage in a world where almost 900 million people go hungry every day, unconsumed food wastes both the energy put into growing it and the fuel spent on transporting produce across vast distances.
Expressed another way, one in every seven people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of five die daily from hunger. From a humanitarian perspective those are appalling statistics. Perhaps we should spend a bit of time just imagining what life would be like if we had to endure such conditions.
This year’s theme – “Think. Eat. Save” – encourages every person to become more aware of the environmental impact of the food choices made, empowering the individual to make informed decisions.
Every year the United Nations Environment Programmee identifies a country to be the centre of focus as we commemorate this day. This year, the main World Environment Day event is hosted by the Government and people of Mongolia. We are told Mongolia is one of the fastest-growing countries in the world, and is aiming to ensure this growth goes hand in hand with a green economy and society. It is said that Mongolia does not waste a significant amount of food, and that the traditional nomadic lifestyle of some of its people, who developed ways to preserve food long periods, offers some ancient answers to the modern-day challenge of food waste.
Similarly, Swaziland has engaged in various food preservation methods over the past decade which have encouraged our people not to waste food as well as keeping it handy for times of scarcity. Practices such as kufusa imibhidvo are some of these traditional and indigenous knowledge systems which have sustained the Swazi Nation.
If food is wasted, it means that all the resources and inputs used in the production of the food are also lost. For example, it takes about 1,000 litres of water to produce one litre of milk and about 16,000 litres goes into a cow’s food to make one hamburger. From the cows and the food chain generally there are greenhouse gas emissions damaging the environment. So when we waste food we can count both damage and wastage.
In the Swaziland context, the habit of throwing away food is not only absurd, but it also foreign to us. Yet in recent times it has been observed that a significant portion of the many tonnes of waste taken to the country’s landfill sites, in cities such as Mbabane, Manzini, Matsapha, Ezulwini, is food-related waste.
It is for that reason that I am reassured to note that among your topics for discussion today is the issue of food waste in the country and, in particular, how we can move away from being a food-wasteful society. I trust you will be objective and come up with realistic recommendations that will help reduce the amounts of organic waste getting into our land-fills as well as dump-sites. Swaziland needs to join the rest of the world in Greening the Economy by ensuring a reduction of carbon emissions, reduction of pollution, enhanced energy and resource efficiency, and reduced loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
As we try to develop our post-Rio+20 strategy, we would like to explore more the concept of a Green Economy and the reduction of food waste is one important step in terms of putting this concept into practice.
It is also worth noting that as a government we have taken a serious stance on the issue of solid waste management as we have a comprehensive National Solid Waste Management Strategy which is accompanied by the Waste Regulations of 2000. This has provided the country with a framework in which all waste issues are coordinated and managed, with clear institutional responsibilities.
Another serious issue, worldwide, is the plastic bag. AS most, if not all, of you will be aware, plastic bags do not biodegrade. That is, they don’t get absorbed beneficially into the soil. Instead, they photodegrade. That means they break down into smaller and smaller toxic bits, contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.
Let us reflect on a few simple facts about plastic bags:
A plastic bag can take between 400 to 1,000 years to break down in the environment. One thrown to the ground today will be there long after all of us have departed this earthly life.
Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle, and other marine animal, deaths every year when animals mistake them for food.
Nearly 90% of the debris in our oceans is plastic.
In Swaziland alone it is estimated that about one million units of plastic carry bags are issued by shops and retailers in the country on a daily basis. A majority of these plastic bags are littered all over the country, with only a limited number finding their way to landfills and recycled. See for yourselves as you travel the highways and byways.
This must stop. It is high time that every inhabitant of our beautiful country takes on board the unequivocal commitment not only never to litter the countryside with a plastic bag but also to limit the number of such materials taken on board in the first place.
It is something of a relief, however, to note that the Swaziland Environment Authority, through the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs, is drafting the Plastic Regulations. These regulations are currently at a stakeholder consultation stage and I do hope they can be promulgated very soon.
In the spirit of this initiative we have declared today, Wednesday 5 June 2013 a NO PLASTIC DAY. This is a call to all Swazis to avoid plastic bags when doing their shopping on this day. Reusable bags will be available in all major shopping centres. This is done to make all of us remember that we need to minimise plastic waste. Indeed, we need to go further and re-evaluate the use of plastic bags in our daily lives and encourage a comprehensive adoption of re-usable bags.
I would like, now, to thank all those who have made today’s event a success: Swaziland Environment Authority, UNDP, Matsapha Municipality, Municipal Councils of Mbabane and Manzini, Ezulwini Town Council and the Media.
I thank all of you here for your presence and wish you the most fruitful discussions with the production of sustainable strategies and commitments.
It is now my honour to declare this Sustainable Consumption Indaba officially opened.
Thank you.