KENYA – The county Government of Nairobi has announced plans to enforce plastic ban to protect the environment from pollution.
Nairobi Governor Johnstone Sakaja said the County government will undertake an operation within the city in a week to ensure that the banned plastic bags and bottles are no longer in the market and supermarkets.
He said Nairobi is the environment capital of the world, hosting the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and would not allow the banned plastics to be used in the city, as they were clogging drainages.
“A lot of roads and drainages are flooded because of dumping of plastic bags and bottles, we will not allow this as we have to keep our city clean,” said Sakaja.
According to the World Bank, Nairobi generates 2,400 tonnes of solid waste daily, 20% of which is in plastic form.
Poor waste management, coupled with rising urban pressure, has heightened the risks of environmental degradation in the city of 4.4 million people.
Of the waste generated by the city, only 45% is recycled, reused or transformed into a form that can yield an economic or ecological benefit, a far cry from the 80% target set by the National Environment Management Authority.
Plastic pollution in the city continues despite the national government enforcing a ban on the manufacture, sale and use of single-use plastic carrier bags in August 2017.
Bold bans but not enough to solve the problem
After enforcing the plastic ban in 2017, the country built on that progress in 2020 when a ban on single-use plastics in protected areas took effect in June.
Though the law signals progress, it only covers national parks, beaches and conservation areas. And there are still no laws requiring producers of PET plastics to take responsibility for managing the waste their products generate.
In 2018, Kenya’s National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) tried to extend the plastic bag ban to include single-use plastic containers – like bottles – made from PET.
But the corporate giants that produce and profit from PET sold the government on a self-regulated, industry-funded solution – which became PETCO.
Formed in 2018, PETCO is supposed to subsidize the collection and recycling of single-use plastics in a country where there is no government-funded infrastructure for processing a never-ending tsunami of it.
Uganda is the weak link in regional fight against plastic bags menace
A recent joint report by environmental conservation organizations in the region, including Kenya’s Centre for Environmental Justice and Development, identified Uganda as the main source of most plastic bags smuggled into Kenya and the rest of East Africa, reports the Standard.
Like its neighbors, Uganda has banned certain categories of single-use plastic bags but ranks poorly in enforcing the ban.
As a result, the manufacture, trade and use of the outlawed plastic bags are thriving, to the detriment of the country and the region.
With nearly 50 registered producers of single-use plastic carrier bags, and an unknown number of illicit ones, Uganda is a key production hub of plastic bags.
The country hosts many plastic manufacturers who relocated from Kenya after the 2017 ban.
Some of these companies target the lucrative market in Kenya and the region, by producing unbranded plastic bags that are smuggled across borders, worsening the plastic pollution crisis.
The demand for the bags is still high, especially from small-scale food traders yet to find suitable and affordable alternatives.
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