Every day the inhabitants of the Earth use paper, which is dumped into waste and poses a serious threat to the health of the inhabitants of the Earth.
Today one of the environmental hazards is paper waste as it accounts for 70% of all waste in the world.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) estimates that there are 95 million tons of waste in the world. This waste comes from companies and factories.
Habumugisha Ezechiel found that if this waste was processed it could become a solution rather than a problem. What is worrying so far is that only 26% of them are processed.
Habumugisha is a young man from Karongi District in Bwishyura Sector. When you get to his home, you are greeted by a collection of materials including a map, letters, numbers, parts of the human body and everything else made of old papers.
It was in 2021 that he heard on the radio the message of conservation that opened his eyes.
As a teacher at Gitarama Primary School, who is passionate about contributing to the development of his country, he thought that paper waste was a matter of concern, as he looked at his teaching center and found waste paper. This is where he got the idea to start collecting those papers and take them home.
When he brings them home, he dips them in water, then become like porridge. He lifts them, and then mix the flour of cassava. This mixture is what makes the tool.
Mugisha is the one who has become an environmental friend so much that he is left to grieve when he sees people burning paper.
“Look at the size of all the schools and burn those sheets; it actually pollutes the air, and nowadays there is a problem with air pollution due to the emissions it sends,” he said.
He has taught teachers in two schools how to make these didactic materials. He is doing this not for the sake of making money but for looking at how he can make his contribution to helping the planet because sustainable development is not achievable with the environment being destroyed.
“If I could, I would teach teachers across the country how to make these didactic materials, and stop burning paper,” he said.
Contribution to the quality of education
Teachers say it is still difficult to find didactic materials, especially those that are non-photographic. These are said to play a role in causing the baby’s brain to quickly learn what it is when it is said and touched.
Makombe Pascal, who has been teaching in the first year of primary school for five years, from nursery school to the third year of primary school.
“When a child tells you, ‘Take these two monkeys, and put two more, they’ll give you four,’ rather than write two numbers on the board and tell them that two to four is four.”
The teacher says Habumugisha’s tutorials help her in her work because she used to want to show the children a bag, a cup and other old materials and missed them.
Contribution to cleanliness
A Canadian study found that an employee at a certain company uses 10,000 pages a year.
School waste is mostly made up of paper. Making didactic materials in old papers has reduced pollution in schools because even children pick up papers and go to school to copy the didactic materials they get at school.
Makombe says that in the past, papers were found in the center, but now every student is left to pick up the papers because they are left with something valuable.
The answer to the environment
The use of old paper aids is one of the reasons for environmental degradation because health research has shown that burning paper sends chemicals to the heart and lungs.
This is because 93% of the paper we use in the world is made from wood. Burning paper is like burning a tree that sends carbon monoxide into the air to reduce the oxygen supply to the people.
Making didactic materials in old paper would reduce the amount of paper and smoke emitted by the air and thus reduce the risk of these smoke-related diseases.
Burning paper as one of the air pollutants, causes climate change and increases floods, droughts and strong winds.
