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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.
“It is not news that plastics don’t biodegrade; not in the manner and speed we expect,” says Dr Eric Okuku, a marine pollution researcher at KMFRI and lead researcher for the study.
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