International Zero Waste Day: YAAC takes action for clean beaches in Dakar

On the occasion of International Zero Waste Day, observed on 30 March, YAAC drew attention to the urgency of beach pollution in Dakar, the Senegalese capital.

The problem in plain terms

Dakar’s coastline carries the waste of a fast-growing city with collection infrastructure that has not kept pace. Plastic accumulates where the tide meets informal dumping, and it does not stay put: it fragments, enters the food chain, and returns to the households that produced it.

What we did

Members of the Youth Alliance for Agroecology and Climate organised a clean-up operation, but the day was not only about collection. Volunteers documented what they found, sorted it by category, and used the results to open conversations with residents and vendors along the shore.

Picking up waste treats the symptom. Understanding where it comes from is what makes the next campaign effective.

What comes next

Zero waste is not a single day. YAAC is working towards recurring coastal monitoring, so that the same stretches can be measured over time rather than cleaned once and forgotten.