Twenty-first century human behaviour continues to escalate activities that result in environmental damage. This calls for environmentally friendly solutions, such as waste recycling and handling, to deal with the increased amount of waste, especially plastics. The plastic materials manufacturing sector is booming, particularly packaging; while only a fraction of its waste is recycled, another fraction is destroyed, and the larger part continues to pollute the environment. In addition to other waste disposal activities, destroying plastic or incineration (which could be for energy recovery) is usually subjected to strict legal requirements because of its effect on the environment. However plastic is destroyed or disposed of, it poses a serious challenge in both the short term and the long term to humans and their natural environment if the process is not efficiently managed. This article describes how a growing amount of plastic waste is disposed of haphazardly in South African townships, while most of the inhabitants are not aware or do not care about the adverse environmental and health effects of these actions. This article examines the environmental and health effects of poor plastic disposal in South African townships as it is in other developing countries to sensitise the citizens to the significance of reducing plastic waste quantities, which will downplay their impact on human health and the environment.
The discovery of plastic by humankind is fast becoming a challenge as the end-of-life disposal of plastic continues to be a discourse on the global platform. This discussion results from several findings that the additives in plastic distress both land and marine life by contributing to organic pollutants when the plastic waste is disposed of improperly. With a growing population in sub-Saharan Africa, managing waste generally, and plastic waste, in particular, represents a continuous challenge. With only between 15–25% of its plastic waste recycled, the larger proportion of waste is either burnt openly or disposed of in open spaces or landfills, where the additives pollute the environment. Moreover, some of the waste finds its way into waterways through estuaries into global water networks and continues to cause harm to man through the food chain. This article examines the literature to highlight the environmental and health impact of plastic waste pollution in sub-Saharan Africa, and it proposes mitigation strategies to reduce the critical consequences of plastic waste pollution.
The challenge of unemployment of built environment graduates is recurrent and this paper aims at presenting findings on the inherent factors therein and make recommendations towards ameliorating this challenge. A quantitative method was adopted for the data collection and the data was organized, analyzed and presented with descriptive statistics. The population sample was limited to the Nelson Mandela University Built Environment Graduates. The study discovered that there were difficulties in securing employment as a result of lack of practical experience, current curriculum and the dearth of skills. The study provides information towards the resolving this challenge arising from the factors identified as causative for unemployability and identifies the need for taught and practical skill and experience to be embedded in the curriculum to stimulate the level of employability.
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