Environment: 23 August | Yero S. Bah
Baboucarr E. Camara: Gunjur Waste Recycler Recollects Efforts to Mitigate Environmental Degradation
The village of Gunjur and its satellite villages are exposed to several environmental threats such as pollution, deforestation, contaminated marine ecosystem and mining activities along the Kombo North and Kombo South belt in recent years all due to human encroachments according to environmentalists and climate activists.
Similar revelations were also reechoed on GunjurOnline by Mr. Baboucarr E. Camara on Saturday August 22, 2020 at his residence in Gunjur.
However, one Baboucarr E. Camara is among the rare gem in the Kombo South community of Gunjur who is engaged in creation of options to deal with the environmental threats by running a waste recycling project that helps to create job opportunities to youth of the areas as well as curb the indiscriminate dumping of waste in neighborhood.
The 2013 Nusrat Senior Secondary School graduate said that, he traveled to Nigeria in 2015 to attend a six month poultry and hatchery management studies upon return from the training program he set up a poultry farm called ‘Best Choice’ at home to serve as self-employment as he never had the chance to get a job or scholarship to pursue university education.
“Living in a society which is harmed so much by plastic waste, littering, deforestation and over fishing; I developed a lot of passion for the environment and its enhancement.” Camara said.
The passionate young environmentalist joined the Trust Agency for Rural Development (TARUD), a renowned local NGO in Gunjur in October 2018 to coordinate its two years recycling UK-Aid funded project together with Waste Aid UK.
He noted that, the project involved marginalized youth and vulnerable women as well as physically challenged individuals in environmental enhancement programs such as plastic waste recycling into high quality and durable pavements, roofing materials and tiles to ensure a profitable business venture and environmentally-friendly projects for the neighborhood is achieved.
“The project trained and empowered ninety (90) people from Gunjur and twenty four (24) others from Women Initiative the Gambia since its inception in 2018.”
The Certificate in Business Management and Administration holder added that, it is a skill regarded by many as crazy job but noble for others saying at the beginning so many ran away but now many are willing to return to work with them.
Besides, there is progress in his activities since he has been given a spacious land and has since left his previous small operating workshop through the intervention of TARUD adding that one of their most important achievements so far is being able to empower marginalized categories of individuals in society by giving them skills required to develop themselves in order for them become better citizens through the collection and recycling of tons of plastic waste products that would have end up littering the streets, washed to sea to be eaten by marine life into beautiful eco-friendly tiles.
“Our work was recognized by one musical group in Gunjur who made a beautiful song for the team this has definitely made us proud.”
Despite all the achievements, there exist numerous challenges as far as recycling is concerned such as lack of transportation whenever waste products are collected by the team, too much expenditure on production, as well as societal stigma to the locally produced plastic products from waste saying people see the products as inferior even whereas they are better than most if not all imported paving tiles.
Besides, limited funding is another major hurdle which deters them from business expansion but also to modify the operation and many more issues whilst calling on government and philanthropists to embrace their efforts in creating employment opportunities and clean environment.
The environmental advocate and plastic waste recycler said that, the coronavirus has halted their waste collection exercises saying it has given them major setbacks as they could no longer collect plastic from all collection points for the fear of local transmission of the global bug. “We are definitely struck with a big chain.”
Mr. Camara believes that, there are endless opportunities in such ventures arguing that you don’t only clean the environment but make money in return saying we are making good use of social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp as well as word of mouth to sell their plastic waste pavement tiles.
“Customers are not a problem at the moment, we need more production equipment to scale up our operations to meet demand for our products; we have our very own workshop but need improvement and therefore need support in all forms.” he points out.
He advised youth to be supportive in new endeavors but also embrace changes in life.