KIGO: Plastic bag ban can be attained if whole region does it

Even after phasing out single-use plastic carrier bags in August 2017, Kenya suffers an influx of contraband plastics, especially from Tanzania and Uganda, where plastics are not banned.

Nema director-general Geoffrey Wahungu has called for an all-out ban in the East African Community. He should be fully supported because Kenya still gets tonnes of these plastics, which come in illegally.

In most markets and fruit and vegetable kiosks, ready-made food like githeri is packaged in the banned bag. Some butcheries, too, continue using these bags to wrap meat for customers.

The government has done well in sensitising the citizenry on the importance of regulating plastic use but much more needs to be done.

East African leaders have toyed now and then with the ban across the region but some reservations still linger in some of them over the issue.

The EAC Polythene Materials Control Bill 2018, which Heads of State failed to assent to in their last summit in Arusha, can be the only solution to the plastic bag menace. It has a common framework on their elimination.

A total ban on plastics will have a direct adverse effect because of job losses and a huge dent to businesses and incomes — as happened in Kenya. But if the region is to mitigate environmental degradation and the effects of pollution, hard decisions have to be taken.

It is, therefore, wise to consider the words of Prof Wahungu when he says that without Uganda and Tanzania stopping the production of the plastic materials, which mostly end up in Kenya, we won’t be free from its pollution. Our heads of State should look at the bigger picture and okay the bill.