Just like all the other jurisdiction where plastic bags ban have been imposed, policy establishments are yet to show an economic and environmental analysis that informs this policy decision.
If we care about sustainable energy consumption, bearing in mind energy takes up to 30 per cent of production cost in Kenya, then plastics is the better option because life cycle assessments of various options have been conducted and turns out that if we want to reduce energy consumption we should use plastic.
Recycling and reuse under an integrated plastic waste management system has helped mitigate long-term environmental degradation
In 1968, environmentalist Paul Ehrlich published an alarming book titled Population Bomb, which stated unequivocally that by 2000 the planet would have run out of food and people will be killing each other in the streets.
He also made the observation that the planet was going to run out of natural resource materials leading to an unsustainable increase in their prices.
Environmental economist Julian Simon purged that prediction saying the opposite was what would happen and asked Ehrlich to pick any five materials he wanted – which was Copper, Chromium, Nickel, Tin and Tungsten – and bet that because they would run out their prices would increase from 1980-1990.
Julian Simon won the bet as it turned out that the prices of the metals actually decreased between that times because whilst the world was using more of these metals we have learned to access them with improved technologies.
Basically, the Simon-Ehrlich wager was not about the metals, but environmentalists being sceptical about technology and innovation addressing our current and future socio-ecological challenges.
It’s this kind of policy-making defect where activism dictates policy-making that Kenya finds itself in with the recent ban on use, manufacture and importation of plastic bags.
Just like all the other jurisdiction where plastic bags ban have been imposed, policy establishments are yet to show an economic and environmental analysis that informs this policy decision.
There is no shadow of a doubt in the public discourse that plastics use pose long-term negative externalities to the environment - the social cost to the environment is higher than marginal cost to an individual buyer.
But for the Ministry of Environment to impose a ban on plastic bag use as an unsustainable behaviour is to tackle a complex problem through the use of flippant piecemeal solution.
First, if we care about sustainable energy consumption, bearing in mind energy takes up to 30 per cent of production cost in Kenya, then plastics is the better option because life cycle assessments of various options have been conducted and turns out that if we want to reduce energy consumption we should use plastic.
Plastic bags are extremely energy efficient and consume 71 per cent less energy during production than a paper bag.
Similarly, there is a big argument about plastic cups versus glass/ceramics cups where studies show that glass and ceramic cups are very energy-intensive to produce and 90 per cent of them break before we recoup the energy invested in making them, and so, if we care about the environment then use plastic cups.
Second, plastic bags are water efficient that producing one consumes less than six per cent of the water needed to make a paper bag.
In fact 16 plastic bags can be made for every one paper bag using the same amount of water.
Third, paper bag production records high levels of air pollution that cause most serious environmental problems as witnessed in Webuye town with Pan Paper Industry.
No effect on waste
Fourth, it has actually been noted in the areas where plastic bag bans have been imposed that even though there has been drastic reduction in the use of plastic bags, this reduction hasn’t reflected much in the whole waste/litter, proving that plastic bags are less responsible for the waste menace.
Though plastic are the visual features of solid waste, the general levels of plastics vis-à-vis total waste across the world is around eight to 12 per cent only, according to UNEP’s Global Waste Outlook report 2015.
Even though Africa records higher levels, they are around 20 per cent which is less than a quarter of the whole waste.
This therefore projects that the issue at hand is a bigger problem, the lack of a sustainable solid waste management infrastructure.
Lastly, as Kenya and other jurisdictions ban plastic bag use, it’s quite remarkable that there is an increase of its use globally thanks to environmental innovations. More profoundly, recycling and reuse under an integrated plastic waste management system has helped mitigate long-term environmental degradation
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