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Kenya: No Solutions Yet for Plastic Waste Problems
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
28 April 2008
Posted to the web 28 April 2008
Joseph Murimi
Nairobi
Various attempts have been made to stop environmental pollution by plastic waste, but a solution is yet to be found.
The latest initiative was by the Nairobi City Council last year's ban of flimsy bags (thin plastic bags). Council askaris arrested people they found using plastic paper bags.
The by-law was relaxed, but within the short time it was in force, one could hardly spot a plastic bag. Supermarkets introduced biodegradable bags and encouraged customers to use shopping bags more than once.
But it was after the slapping of a 120 per cent exercise tax on plastic materials in the last Budget Speech that the industry was made to take a keen interest in waste management.
In 2005, the Government and the United Nations Enviromental Programme made recommendations under the banner of Sustainable Cities Programme and Participatory Solid Waste Management that are yet to be implemented.
Recommendations
The recommendations were as a result of extensive consultations involving multiple plastic bag stakeholders. They include the Local Government, Trade and Industry, Environment and Natural Resources ministries, municipal councils, City Council, National Environment Management Authority (Nema) and players in the plastic business, among others.
The recommendations fell under the UN agenda for the achievement of urban environmental sustainability as espoused during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Nema, the national environment watchdog, has declared a ban on plastic bags less than 30 microns in density.
Although the municipal authorities have expressed concern about the solid waste problem, they seem to lack a sense of gravity of the problem.
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Other players tend to think that the plastic bag problem has been blown out of proportion for political reasons. In the absence of regulations for private companies' participation in sewerage and water management, it is common for them to indiscriminately dispose of waste in low-income areas.
The private companies have thus contributed to higher concentration of plastic waste in the low-income areas. The problem becomes overly simplistic because it is convenient to fault the plastic bag consumer for irresponsible waste disposal.
The Government and Unep recommendations so far represent the instruments for a solution on the plastic bag waste problem in urban centres. The recommendations have, however, ignored recycling of plastic waste as a viable alternative with numerous benefits to the environment as well as socio-economic development.
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