June 5, marks World Environment Day, which will be celebrated in Nakuru at Nakuru National Park. The theme for the event worldwide is finding solutions to plastic pollution #BeatPlasticPollution.
For the past five decades, countries have come together every year to commemorate nature and vow to protect it. Climate Change has taken a toll on Africa and the world by force and now we get to mitigate or adapt to it. World Environment Day allows us to come up with ways to take care of the environment
Last year, World Environment Day was held in Nyeri County at the Dedan Kimathi University of Technology. Nature Kenya supported the event with the theme being the #OnlyOneEarth campaign. In Sweden, Stockholm 1972, a similar theme was used but its relevance hasn’t been depleted yet.
After the event in Nyeri, there were transformative policies that were agreed on including the introduction of solar panels and solar-powered electricity to people. More to that, the country agreed on choices to make cleaner, greener, and more sustainable life together with nature. The main reasoning was that we only have one earth and both humans and nature need to coexist. One cannot survive without the other and so are dependent on both.
A couple of SSG activities that were carried out include, clean-ups, tree planting, bird watching, environmental Education and awareness creation. The day was marked with over 10,000 trees planted and marked for growth.
World Environment Day 2023
This year, World Environment Day comes at a time when we’re dealing with plastic pollution. According to UNEP, 430 million tonnes of plastic are produced. With 46% of landfilled plastic waste and 22% ending up as mismanaged litter. These plastic materials are non-biodegradable and cause harm to nature. Can cause suffocation to marine life, damage soil, and poison underground water.
A few activities planned for the event are awareness creation, recognition of waste recyclers and clean-ups of the local facilities. The events have already started with the cleanup of plastic waste from River Ndarugo as the river enters Nakuru National Park in Nakuru County during the cleanup exercise held today as a buildup towards #WorldEnvironmentDay2023 on Monday, June 5.
The celebrations will be held worldwide by UNEP in Côte d’Ivoire supported by the Netherlands. The theme for the celebrations is anchored on finding solutions to plastic pollution.
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