Impending Health Disaster Due To Environmental Negligence In Developing and Emerging Economies

A trip to some of the developing and emerging economies would reveal the level of environmental pollution caused by negligence and inability to enact, implement, and/or, improve environmental policies for effectiveness and public satisfaction.

What is the mess?

Littering of plastics and related materials have become a way of life. Inadequate public toilets and poor management of existing ones pose serious health concern. They stand in the way of public’s convenience anywhere and at any time. It has become a culture to drink “pure water” and drop the sachet on the road or the nearest gutter even from a moving vehicle. It has become a culture to eat your food whilst on the road or in the vehicle and drop the plastic bag in the nearest gutter, nearest bush, on the road or in the way of the public. It has become a culture to see these turn into massive waste heap, yet nothing is being done to clean it up and stop further mess from heaping up.

You may be badly pressed, but sadly, would hardly find a public convenience near your location to ease-off quickly. And where they exist, you may be put off and chased out by the mess the moment you step in. Unfortunately, water no longer flows through the gutters as these materials block the waterways. Mosquitoes have found the gutters their haven and breeding grounds. The plastic bags have become so filthy that they float on top of still gutter water that smells. These are turned into eye-saw over time.

Why is there this mess? And why has this “abnorm” become a norm in such economies? The simple answer is because of negligence of the importance of clean environment to life. That mess is a clear demonstration of inability to effectively, prioritize, devise and/or, implement effective environmental policies and service delivery strategy that focus on promoting cleanliness and proper disposal of plastic wastes whilst adding value to businesses. However, great opportunity exists beyond this failure.

What Opportunity Exists?

The environmental mess provides an opportunity to create improvement culture around these policies and their performances in these economies. Ironically, many of these economies, have set aside one day or the other for “cleanup”. Yet one would imagine the effectiveness of such exercise; and what it is producing whenever this “culture” of plastic mess is reviewed or sincerely investigated? What are they cleaning up and what are they preventing from repeating? Is the cleanup exercise planned and managed by competent personnel? How is the benefit of the exercise conveyed to stakeholders so they can buy into the exercise freely and whole-heartedly? In Product Management, when an organization or business fails to sell or market the product or policy properly, the management is bound to fail because rate of adoption would be negatively impacted. This is either because prospective buyers do not understand the benefits of the product or service, the product or service is badly produced, or it is not being delivered to customers expectations.

Prioritize Health, Economic Growth and Value

Clearly, there is serious health risk due to environmental negligence and their policy failures. Rarely do you see public toilets in these economies. And where they exist, they are poorly managed if not completely neglected - thereby constituting more damage to the environment and health than they were created to solve. Moreover, it could be observed that where public toilets exist, they were mainly built by the 3rd sector. This tended to explain why the rate of spread and adoption of health and environmental education across these economies is low. Changes need to be delivered to these policies and people’s perception of health and environmental policies. The private sector must be actively and productively involved to complement the efforts of the 3rd sector, where possible, in delivering of better services even if it requires payments for the services, putting people into paid employments to maintain the infrastructure, improve services and adequately service them profitably by businesses concerned.

Therefore, for any environmental policy to be effective in these economies, it must focus on delivering value to stakeholders – governments, individuals, communities, businesses, and organizations. It must be geared towards the end goal of preventing health issues, and where possible, in generating revenue to keep up with infrastructure maintenance and economic growth.

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