Pollution highway: How Athi River transports millions of plastics into Indian Ocean

Plastics wash up on the seafront in Lamu County. [File, Standard]

As at August 2020, a plastic tube for packaging jelly; manufactured in 1998 – for skin application – was still, almost entirely, intact. On the tube, the letters ‘Valon’ – the jelly manufacturer – were still clearly visible.

A team of researchers with Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI), Pwani University, and the Technical University of Mombasa, collected the tube, alongside a Blue Band container (also plastic) with the year 2015 written on it, at the Sabaki estuary – where the iconic Athi-Galana-Sabaki River joins the Indian Ocean.