Kenya have officially banned the use of plastic bags and will implement strict punishments to anyone who fails to comply, including imprisonment!
The Kenyan government are serious about stopping pollution. They have just imposed the toughest law restricting the use of plastic bags. Any Kenyans found to be producing, selling or using plastic bags risk being imprisoned for up to four years or pay fines of $40,000.
The law will allow police to go after anyone carrying a plastic bag but initially it will be directed at manufacturers and suppliers. For the time being, law enforcement can only confiscate plastic bags from the public. The law actually took three attempts to be made official over a ten year period.
Many believe that the law is too harsh and has now cost around 60,000 jobs. Kenya is a massive producer of plastic bags. However the problem of plastic pollution is extremely prominent.
“If we continue like this, by 2050, we will have more plastic in the ocean than fish,” – Habib El-Habr, an expert on marine litter working with the U.N. Environment Programme in Kenya.
Plastic ends up killing ocean life, by suffocation or starvation. The plastic ends up in the stomach of ocean mammels and fish, preventing them from eating and eventually they slowly starve to death.
Not only ocean life are affected, in Nairobi cows are slaughtered for human consumption and when opened up they have up to 20 plastic bags in their stomachs.
Plastic bags are a massive environmental problem in African countries. Kenya alone uses around 24 million bags a month. It is no wonder their government has implemented such strict laws.
It is good to see government taking pollution so seriously! What are your thoughts?