Across the planet attention has recently been drawn to the plastic pollution crisis. We are emptying millions of tons of rubbish into the world’s oceans each year. Noticing an increase in the amount of litter in their town, the Bomassa Women’s Association for the Environment or Les Femmes Unies de Bomassa pour la Biodiversité (FUBB) decided to take action. Last week they went through the town from door to door showing their community photos of what could become of their town, their rivers and their forest if they didn’t work together to improve the cleanliness of the village. Showing photos of rivers choked with plastic creating stagnant pools where mosquitos carrying diseases breed, birds with stomach’s full of plastic and school grounds scattered with plastic the women explained the negative impacts of pollution.

Every first Saturday of the month, the village comes together for a morning of salongo– meaning “working together” in Lingala. Led by the Bomassa Women’s Association, and joined by staff of the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park’s Bomassa headquarters, the team swept through the main street removing wheel barrow loads of rubbish from the town. At the end of the clean-up Francie Kouendende reminded those gathered of the negative impacts of litter in their town, ““Litter like plastic and tins can take many years to degrade and can injure our children while they are playing. Keeping our town clean is for the benefit of everyone in our community”.

Recently the Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo, Mr Clément Moumba, reignited the tradition of salongo, calling for communities across the country to come together to clean their neighbourhoods and towns on the first Saturday of each month. This new initiative, which will take place on the first Saturday of each month going forward, answers the prime minister’s call to action. Plastic bags have been illegal in Congo since 2011, further showing the country’s will to protect the environment.