East African Community governments urged to implement single-use plastic bans

Nipe Fagio CEO, Ana Lê Rocha Speaking during a press conference in Dar es Salaam to release a investigative report on illegal plastic bag trade in the EAC.

 

Dar es Salaam – Tanzania: In a move to combat the ongoing use of single-use plastic items governments in the East
African Community (EAC) have been urged to implement bans of single-use plastic items in the region.
 

Speaking during a press conference in Dar es Salaam to release a investigative report on illegal plastic bag trade in
the EAC, the Executive Director of Nipe Fagio, Ana Lê Rocha, said that plastic pollution is a global problem, it
requires immediate action on a global scale, especially considering that plastic production continues to increase as
days go on.
 

“Currently, we are producing about 381 million tons annually. Once these items have been consumed and
discarded, 75% of them end up in either the natural environment or in landfills. The rest is incinerated, increasing
the hazard to people’s health, and a small portion is recycled or upcycled,” Ms. Rocha said.

The investigative report was developed by Nipe Fagio in collaboration with Bio Vision Africa (BiVA Africa) in
Uganda, Global Initiative for Environment and Reconciliation (GER) in Rwanda, and the Centre for Environmental
Justice and Development (CEJAD) in Kenya, to analyze the current situation in all four countries and to understand
the trade and the flow of plastic carrier bags, that have been fully banned in Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda but are
still found in the markets and on the streets.

 
Rocha explained that by combating the use of single-use plastic items in the form of carrier bags, countries in the
East African Community (EAC) have taken individual efforts to introduce regulations to ban the manufacture,
importation/exportation, and consumption of plastic carrier bags.

 
Rwanda began its efforts in 2008 and has had the most successful outcome within the EAC. Kenya followed in 2017
and Tanzania in 2019. Uganda has announced bans on single-use plastic bags on several occasions (2007, 2009,
2015, 2018 and 2021) but implementation is still lagging.

 
“Despite the bans on single-use plastic carrier bags, the case studies in each of the EAC countries have shown that
the bans have created spaces for cross-border smuggling of these plastic bags.