In 2017, the DRC passed a law banning the manufacture and import of plastic bags and bottles but the regulation remains largely ignored.
Waste collection is virtually non-existent in Kinshasa, due to a chronic lack of local authority funding.
The mighty Congo River feeds millions of people along its course through the vast Democratic Republic of Congo but fishermen near the capital now find more plastic than fish in their nets.
Some have even ditched fishing altogether because it is more profitable to sell the plastic waste they trawl out of the river, the world's second-most powerful watercourse after the Amazon.
According to government figures, around 60,000 tonnes of fish are taken annually from the Congo, which flows for more than 4,300 kilometres (2,700 miles) east to west through the huge central African country.
