Environmental Burden of Plastic Bags in Kenya

Plastic Bags Blown by Wind 

"The plastic bags we have in Kenya are so flimsy that millions of them only get used once before being thrown away, you see them in the trees, in the hedges, and on the ground. And when they settle on the ground, they collect small pools of stagnant water, in which mosquitoes breed." Professor Wangari Maathai

Since the 20th century, plastic has become a widespread material that cannot miss in every household. The characteristic of plastics such as durability, low cost, and light weight has made it very useful material in everyday life. These characteristics have worked to the advantage and sustainability of plastics over their substitutes. Consequently, plastic bags have replaced the traditional paper bags and secured a solid place in the modern consumer economy. Despite these good qualities, the non-biodegradable nature of plastics has worked to its disadvantage at its end of life phase.
As Kenya uses nearly a million bags daily, more than half of these plastic bags end up in the solid waste mainstream thereby causing the biggest test to solid waste management across the country. The percentage of plastic bag waste is relatively high in municipal solid waste. The plastic bag waste has resulted in several adverse environmental impacts such as blockage of rivers and culverts, the blight of landscapes, choking of soil and animals. The bags have caused deteriorated air quality, disrupted ecosystems, threaten wildlife, and contaminate both surface and ground water. The plastic bags have also been linked to the 'flying toilets’, a major public health concern in slum neighborhoods. The bags contain poisonous ingredients such as Phthalates and Bisphenol-A that are linked to cancer, birth defects, endocrine disruption, impaired immunity and other ailments. The plastic bags also offer breeding grounds for mosquitoes that cause malaria.
Attempts and Challenges

The Problem of Plastic Bags

Different Kenyan towns have developed strategies to deal with plastic bag menace. For example, In 2006 Nairobi developed a complete plastic waste management strategy that focused on raising mass awareness, community participation, attractive incentives, serious consultation, and heavy penalties for the offenders. However, nothing much has been done as plastic bags are visible everywhere. According to the International Journal of Current Research, nearly half of plastic bags clog the drains and end up in landfills. When the bags end up in rivers and lakes, the marine life gets endangered and in most cases has killed the animals when inadvertently consumed. This is very eminent in Lake Nakuru national park where plastic bags are causing havoc. In Lake Nakuru, the traces of plastics have been found in dead carcasses.
In mid-2007, Kenya banned thinner plastic bags of up to 6 microns in thickness that are easily carried by the wind many kilometers from their origin. Even though there is a shift to 10 microns, these bags still litter the environment due to the unsuccessful collection and recycling infrastructure. Unlike the plastic bottles, plastic bags are rarely recycled that leave the bags carelessly disposed of. The plastic bags are thinner and require lots of sorting and cleaning, unlike the bottles. Since recycling of plastic bags are not economically viable as one would require it lots of them to make something worthwhile due to their thickness and this is very expensive to recyclers. The recyclers would rather focus on plastic bottles that are less expensive to recycle since they require little sorting and cleaning. Since the cost of producing new plastic bags is cheap and recycling expensive, there are more plastics everywhere.
The prevalence of plastics everywhere is due to failures on the market, institution, and policy that has cascaded undesirable effects in the general public. These failures have driven a wedge between the consumption activities and social and private costs of production. These failures have distorted the correct signals about the true scarcity of resources being depleted and the cost of environmental damage being caused to the producers and consumers of products and services. This has, therefore, caused over-production and over-consumption of resource-depleting and environment-damaging plastic bags, and underproduction and under-consumption of other alternative resource-saving and environmentally friendly commodities.
The market has failed as the production and consumption externalities are passed to the environment. Since the plastic bags principally aid use-and-throw consumerism, they are overly cheap. But why are they so cheap? Plastic bags require a fairly small amount of material to produce devoid of loss of function thus savings on the cost of raw material. Another reason is the existence of externalities as the end-of-life treatment and resource depletion costs are not included in the product cost. The cheapness of these plastic bags has certainly led to extravagant consumption and disposal in various fronts. For example, the take-away consumerism common in many Kenyan cities has seen food items like French fries wrapped in feeble plastic bags even though they are best served in plates. This case excludes the consumer and the manufacturer from paying for the external costs.
The institutions and infrastructures charged with managing plastic bag menace have failed. After use, nearly all plastic wastes are inappropriately disposed of. This happens because the solid waste management systems are dysfunctional. The existence of inadequate plastic waste collection and treatment schemes, and poor enforceable littering and dumping by-laws has exhibited the institutional failures. Resource mismanagement by local authorities has also affected effective garbage collection and the inability to enforce the existing by-laws in Kenyan town
Feasible Solutions

A Waterway Blocked by Plastic Bags

Proper corrective measures should be formulated to address the root causes. Since externalities are the principal causes, economic instruments are viable corrective measures that can be adopted. For example, when a levy charged on one-way plastic bags is properly set, the desired change in consumer behavior may be stimulated and this may encourage re-use and rational use of plastic bags. There is the need to change the production and consumption patterns. This can be achieved economically by restricting its consumption, making its production expensive and imposing higher prices.
The use of levy is core in tackling the menace as it works well in relation to environmental effectiveness, enforceability, cost-effectiveness, and political acceptability. The levy will help control wasteful consumption thereby promoting the re-use culture. There is also a need to fix the institutional failures. The focus should be on formulating and enforcing feasible by-laws on illegal dumping and littering. Awareness campaigns and education can also be done to everyone involved in the production, use, and disposal of the plastic bags. Even though economic instruments can be very effective in handling the plastic problem, Kenya just like other developing countries is faced with the major challenges of limited resources to be devoted towards environmental quality improvements. Since these countries focus more on economic development, fewer resources get allocated in dealing with environmental challenges. Another option that is widely debated is the outright ban on plastic bags. Since the damaging nature of plastic bags is astronomical, the ban on the bags appears to be the most appropriate. As millions of bags are produced daily, a large proportion gets dumped in the wrong places. On the permanent basis, the focus should be on changing from the material used to make conventional plastics to the desirable renewable and biodegradable materials. The options available include bio-degradables, photo-degradables, and compostables.
Conclusion 
Plastic bags are a symbol of environmental wastefulness. It makes no sense to produce a single-use bag that lasts for many of years destroying the environment and harming animals. The widespread existence of plastics everywhere is an indication of ineffective by-laws on illegal dumping and littering; externality impact in production and consumption,  malfunctioning garbage collection and disposal systems, poor life-cycle considerations, and low public awareness. The intervention measures should focus on changing the unsustainable behaviors about plastic bag production and consumption. The measures should aim at addressing the root causes, creating corrective policy and practical instruments that can prevent wasteful consumption, resource depletion and waste accumulation, and littering and open-dumping