(Seychelles News Agency) - The Basel Convention has opened a second call for pilot projects under its Plastic Waste Partnership and interested parties in Seychelles can submit their proposals to the Ministry of Environment for endorsement, a top official said.

Nanette Laure, director general at the waste enforcement and permit division told SNA that governments, non-governmental organisations, and other entities may submit projects that they have sought governmental endorsement for.

Laure said that in the first call for proposals under the Plastic Waste Partnership, no projects from Seychelles for implementation "despite being very good as they had not been endorsed by the government."

The deadline for submission of proposals is April 11.

"This is why we are advertising the call for projects ourselves this year so that they all go through the Ministry to get the compulsory letter of endorsement from the government," said Laure.

The Basel Convention Partnership on Plastic Waste provides financial support for pilot projects that seek to improve and promote sound management of plastic waste.  and to prevent and minimize its generation.

Successful proposals can get funding of $50,000 to $180,000 per national project and $300,000 to $500,000 for regional ones.

Seychelles, an archipelago in the western Indian Ocean, is one of 187 countries that approved a United Nations' plastic waste pact aimed at reducing pollution from plastic waste in May 2019.

The island nation has made a lot of effort to try and deal with this issue and in the last few years, imposed bans on several plastic items in a bid to further protect its environment.

A ban on balloons came into effect last September. This followed a ban on plastic straws in 2019 and several other plastic items including bags and utensils.

Seychelles signed the Basel Convention in 1993 and ratified it in 2015.

The Convention is an international treaty that came into force in 1992 with the aim to reduce the movement of hazardous waste between nations and stop the transfer from developing countries to non-developing ones.