Baccalauréat · Série C · Anglais — 2021

TEXT — Turning plastic into pavement

Ten years ago, the district of Tanghin, in northern Ouagadougou, was famous for one thing: its plastic bags. They were everywhere — in the gutters, on the thorn bushes, in the stomachs of the goats that died every rainy season.

Today, forty-two women collect these bags. They wash them, dry them, cut them into strips and melt them with sand in a large metal drum. The mixture is then poured into moulds. Six hours later, it has become a paving stone, strong enough to carry a lorry.

« At the beginning, people laughed at us, » remembers Fatoumata Sanou, the president of the cooperative. « They said we were dirty women who played with rubbish. Then the town hall bought four thousand paving stones for the market, and they stopped laughing. »

The work is hard and not without danger: melting plastic releases fumes, and the women now wear masks and work in the open air. They would like a proper machine, but it costs eleven million francs.

« People think the environment is a problem for rich countries, » says Fatoumata. « But we are the ones who live in the rubbish. So we are the ones who must remove it. »