Kenya – plastic bags rule relaxed

The Nation (Nairobi) reports that all local authorities have been instructed to carry out awareness campaigns before banning plastic bags. In the meantime, the Nairobi City Council has been directed to go slow on the ban as residents get more information on how to comply.



Local Government minister Musikari Kombo said the directive to all councils was meant to prepare them for the eventual ban on plastics as indicated in the Finance Bill by Finance minister Amos Kimunya.



Before the countrywide ban comes into force from January next year, Mr Kombo said, technical departments of local authorities should buy digital micrometer to measure the thickness of plastic bags- not limited to not less than 30 microns and carry out vigorous awareness campaigns to inform the public about the compliance.



He was responding to request for a ministerial statement by Kilome MP Mutinda Mutiso (Narc) on the ban by City Hall and whether it had the requisite expertise to enforce it. "Shoppers are being harassed by city council askaris when they come from supermarkets and they want to know what is happening," he had said.



Mr Kombo said the ban on plastic bags of less than 30 microns in the city followed a meeting organised with the assistance of Unep in Nairobi on June 22, 2006.



The meeting, he said, came out with a strategy on how to achieve sustainable plastic waste management practices. The highlights were to minimise the manufacture of plastic material; initiate programmes to reduce, re-use and recycle plastic bags.



The minister observed that the problem of over use, misuse and indiscriminate littering of plastic bags was big in Nairobi. Relevant Links East Africa Environment Kenya Sustainable Development



He said that the city‘‘s supermarkets annually gave out approximately one million bags, which he argued, had contributed to visual pollution, blockage of drainage and gutters, posed a threat to aquatic life and caused livestock deaths.