Why Nigeria may not ban plastic bags as Kenya has done, by AEEPM
Following the success story recorded by Senegal, since January 5, 2016, in banning manufacture and use of certain plastic bags, and the recent take off of similar ban from Monday last week in Kenya, leading environmental experts in Nigeria have started weighing why the rule cannot be effective in Nigeria.
The head of research at Africa Environmental & Economic Peace Mission (AEEPM), Dr. Dominic Ezeh, has decried why the NESREA cannot enforce key provisions of the nation’s launched environmental standards.
While congratulating the courage of Kenya and Senegal for achieving similar feat made by South Africa and Egypt years ago, he said “it will take a government that has the political will to do such thing in Nigeria”.
In an interview, Dr. Ezeh argued that “If there is any country that urgently needs a ban on the manufacture, importation or use of plastic bags for packaging, it is Nigeria because the scourge remains the most cause of blocked drains and waterways”.
“A study conducted in Lagos shows that the state has the highest prevalence of plastic materials in the drains and has been the arrowhead in several flooding and associated occurrence in the state.
Business Hilights gathered that a ban on plastic bags came into force on Monday last week in Kenya and those found in violation of the ban could be given a maximum fine of 40,000 dollars or risk imprisonment of up to four years.
With the take off of the rule, Kenya has joined more than 40 other countries that have banned, partly banned or taxed single use plastic bags, including China, France, Rwanda, and Italy.
Many bags drift into the ocean, strangling turtles, suffocating seabirds and filling the stomachs of dolphins and whales with waste until they die of starvation.
“If we continue like this, by 2050, we will have more plastic in the ocean than fish,” said Habib El-Habr, an expert on marine litter working with the UN Environment Programme in Kenya.
Plastic bags, which El-Habr says take between 500 to 1,000 years to break down, also enter the human food chain through fish and other animals.
In Nairobi’s slaughterhouses, some cows destined for human consumption had 20 bags removed from their stomachs.
“This is something we didn’t get ten years ago but now it’s almost on a daily basis,” said county vet Mbuthi Kinyanjui as he watched men in bloodied white uniforms scoop sodden plastic bags from the stomachs of cow carcasses.
Kenya’s law allows police to go after anyone even carrying a plastic bag.
Judy Wakhungu, Kenya’s environment minister, said enforcement would initially be directed at manufacturers and suppliers.
“Ordinary wananchi will not be harmed,” she told Reuters, using a Kiswahili word for “common man”.
It took Kenya three attempts over ten years to finally pass the ban, and not everyone is a fan.
Samuel Matonda, spokesman for the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, said it would cost 60,000 jobs and force 176 manufacturers to close.
Kenya is a major exporter of plastic bags to the region.
“The knock-on effects will be very severe,” Matonda said.
“It will even affect the women who sell vegetables in the market, how will their customers carry their shopping home?”
Big Kenyan supermarket chains like France’s Carrefour and Nakumatt have already started offering customers cloth bags as alternatives.
