Biodegradable paper, for all its attractions, still takes years to decompose and for governments with stretched budgets special levies soon get diverted to more urgent needs.
It would be foolhardy to jeopardise a clean environment and its benefits to the region’s 150 million people like lower exposure to diseases, cleaner water downstream and healthier soils for food security for the sake of less than 200 factories and their workers.
East Africa is torn between two quite diametrically opposed forces – the lure of profit and the wisdom of conservation.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the scores of regulations and policies meant to protect the public interest that are immediately muzzled by the financial muscle of private companies.
Over the next two months, the region is going to witness no-holds barred lobbying by industries against a regional draft law targeting the eyesore that is plastic bags – suffocating rivers, soils, forests and even buildings. The reading of the East African Community Polythene Materials Control Bill 2016 at the regional assembly has been pushed to May to allow adequate consultation among stakeholders following a petition from the business lobby.
The pushback came at a time when Kenya had relented in its opposition to the Bill, shrugging off pressure from manufacturers to protect businesses and jobs. The country has announced a ban on plastic packaging bags with effect from September but this being an election year, the political will may waver.
Without disputing the untold damage plastics are causing the environment, voices against the ban say they were not adequately consulted; that the same resolve has not been directed to other polluters like industrial and e-waste; that the phasing out period is short; that tax incentives would achieve more and that imported goods wrapped in plastic bags are not barred.
All valid concerns meant to persuade us that management of plastic waste, not production of plastics, needs to be addressed through measures such as insistence on biodegradable paper and introduction of an environmental levy to help clean up the mess.
These arguments miss some market dynamics. First, plastics are a major force in polluting the environment because they are used on a mass scale thanks to their affordability.
Anything short of a ban will fall short of checking their use. When Kenya banned the use of thin plastics a decade ago, for instance, arguments similar to those being made now were later found to have been way off the mark.
Biodegradable paper, for all its attractions, still takes years to decompose and for governments with stretched budgets special levies soon get diverted to more urgent needs. Second, emotive as business closures and job losses are, it would be foolhardy to jeopardise a clean environment and its benefits to the region’s 150 million people like lower exposure to diseases, cleaner water downstream and healthier soils for food security for the sake of less than 200 factories and their workers.
These factories need to be re-oriented, with public support where necessary, to engage in other activities including those created by the ban such as textiles (reusable bags and traditional baskets) as well as recycling of paper. Recycling in particular offers vast opportunities but has been discouraged by the importation of cheap packaging materials that sell in local markets at a fraction of the environmentally friendly carrier bags.
Manufacturers and users of plastic bags would oppose this on the grounds that it would be expensive. When placed against posterity and the benefits of future generations, it would be a small price to pay for now, one shopping spree at a time. Let the ban be.
