We are excited that the Sustainable Plastic Attitudes to Benefit Communities and their Environments (SPACES) team comprising Professor Alister Munthali and Mr Henry Chilobwe from the Centre for Social Research of the University of Malawi, Professor Richard Quilliam from the Stirling University, Scotland, Professor Kate Hampshire from Durham University, England, Ms Taonga Mwapasa-Kumwenda from the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS) and Mr Patrick Kalonde of the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust has this week successfully completed two research dissemination exercises.

The first dissemination was held at the World Bank Malawi Country Office on Tuesday 8th October, followed by another one on Wednesday at the Parliament of Malawi where the team also presented to the Committee on Natural Resources and the Environment.

SPACES is a multidisciplinary research project that started in 2021 and pools together three universities from Malawi, four Universities from the UK and one University in Tanzania whose objective is to investigate the drivers and health risks associated with plastic waste in urban and to provide evidence that plastic pollution is much more than just an environmental problem or a waste management challenge, but also a significant public health issue.

Among the key findings shared during the dissemination exercise are that plastics play a key role in people’s lives and also support many livelihoods through collection, reuse, recycling and repair and there are not adequate alternatives to replace the role of plastics. Furthermore, while plastic waste disposal remains a challenge, plastic waste provides a fertile ground for the colonization and breeding of pathogens. Several Anti-microbial pathogens including E.Coli, cholera and shigella have been found on plastic waste collected from waste piles in Ndirande.