This follows draft laws by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry which is seeking stiffer penalties for polluting the environment.
The Sustainable Waste Management Bill 2021 compels users of plastic materials to separate garbage into organic, dry and special waste ahead of collection.
US multinational Dow Chemical, which produces key materials for manufacturing plastic packaging, has backed a proposal to compel companies to recycle materials.
This follows draft laws by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry which is seeking stiffer penalties for polluting the environment.
Dow Chemical East Africa, the producer of polyethylene which is used to make plastic packaging products ranging from clear food wrappers and shopping bags, says the new rules which will privatise the collection of plastic waste are timely.
“The regulations are timely because the reality is that, for the longest period, everybody in the (plastics) value chain has been working in a silo,” Dow Chemical East Africa MD Leonard Kareko told the Business Daily in an interview.
“This means if I am a manufacturer, I produce the resin and give it to the next person in the value chain, the brand owner puts the product on the shelf, you as a consumer buys and that’s the end of your responsibility.”
The Sustainable Waste Management Bill 2021 compels users of plastic materials to separate garbage into organic, dry and special waste ahead of collection, failure to which they will be slapped with a Sh20,000 fine or up to six-year jail.
The draft Environmental Management and Co-ordination (Extended Producer Responsibility) Regulations, on the other hand, requires companies that manufacture, import or sell plastics products to independently and jointly create compliance schemes.
The Extended Producer Responsibility schemes will put in place logistics for the collection of plastics materials for reusing, recycling or recovery.
“Working with you private sector, we will ensure that there are take-back schemes so that any waste that you are responsible for, whether as a producer or importer of a product, you follow it up to post-consumer and take it back,” Environment and Forestry principal secretary Chris Kiptoo told a forum in Nairobi recently.
“And this is something that’s with the AG (Attorney-General’s office) and very soon you will see it published... and you’ll have six months to comply.”
Kenya imposed one of the world’s toughest bans on plastic bags in 2017, but authorities have failed to set segregated plastic collection bins.
