Kenya kaveera ban leaks into Uganda

The polythene manufacturers, who point at the investment they have made and the jobs they have created, have President Museveni and the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Cooperatives on their side. The Independent has also been told that Museveni’s reluctance to support the implementation of the kaveera ban is based on a long term view of the petroleum industry that Uganda is developing.

According to this view, Museveni expects that in the next few years Uganda will be producing petroleum products and a plethora of industries that produce byproducts, including plastics like kaveera, are anticipated.

As a result, after a series of consultative meetings starting in April 2015, NEMA was in November 2016 asked to go slow on the implementation of the polythene ban.  Some manufacturers and traders told The Independent that NEMA had “sobered up.”

In an earlier interview with The Independent, Dr. Tom Okurut, the NEMA executive director said if Kenya banned polythene bag manufacturing, it would make it easier for the environmental agency he heads to implement the ban in Uganda since smuggling remains one of the biggest challenges in implementing the ban.

Okurut said early this year that the ban on Kaveera still stood and its implementation was on course.

Bob Ambrose Nuwagira, NEMA’s senior education, information and education officer also told The Independent that NEMA has been going directly to the public through a media campaign that tells Ugandans to abandon the use of polythene bags as individuals.

“NEMA believes that an empowered population will easily reject kaveera because of the health issues that surround it,” he said.

NEMA is also building partnerships with other government agencies, like the Uganda Revenue Authority and the Immigration Department within the Internal Affairs ministry to confiscate polythene bags that are illegally brought into the country.

He said NEMA has engaged the Civil Aviation Authority to halt polythene bags from getting into the country through Entebbe International Airport.

Nuwagira said NEMA is also discussing with the local government authorities; especially Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), to enforce the ban by denying licenses to prospective businesses that intend to trade in polythene bags.

“We believe that by the time another Cabinet guideline comes, we will have moved a step forward,” Nuwagira says, “The longer Cabinet takes to pronounce itself on kaveera, the more the problem gets entrenched in the country.”

For decades, disposable plastic bags have proven handy for shoppers. But environmental activists around the world say littering of waste; mainly domestic waste is the biggest challenge facing residents in many urban centres.

Environmentalists say the plastic bags, which are mainly made from oil and natural gas take decades to biodegrade; they remain in the environment as small or even microscopic particles, essentially forever.

Charles Ogang, the President of the Uganda National Farmers Federation told The Independent on Sept.02 that farmers in Uganda are heavily affected by the careless way the plastic bags are being manufactured or imported, distributed, and disposed of.

“Soil to farmers is the working table and once it has been interfered with, that has a direct impact on crop production,” he said, “Where polythene bags are concentrated, we see the fertility of the soil completely gone.”

But UMPRA says the issues the environmentalists raise do not warrant a ban of polythene bags. Rwabugahya told The Independent that UMPRA wants the government to lower taxes on the importation of recycling plants so that all polythene bag producers install recycling plants to help in taking waste out of the environment.

“Littering is not the problem; it is not the production of plastic bags that might stop environmental degradation but sachets of milk, plastic bottles also end up in the environment and also harm the soil and the environment.”

“What is needed today is mass public awareness on responsible littering,” a statement on UMPRA’s Facebook page noted on June 16, this year, “Separating bottles, bags, polythene bags, straws, glasses, metal and cans from garbage is the first step.”

For UMPRA, it appears, the Kenyan ban is an opportunity for Ugandan manufacturers of kaveera to fill the 80% supply hole created in Uganda by the Kenyan ban. For environmentalist pushing for a ban, such a move would create a crisis.

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