http://www.boatinternational.com | June 2018Last August, Kenya became the latest country in Africa to ban
plastic bags, following the lead set by Rwanda in 2008. It was the
culmination of a long campaign driven by Professor Judi
Wakhungu, then cabinet secretary for environment, water and
natural resources since 2013. Now visitors arriving by plane are
required to leave duty-free and other plastic carriers at the
airport; and they may not be brought ashore from boats.
Prior to the ban, an estimated 24 million bags were handed
out each month across the nation (which has a population of
41 million), 86,000 a day in Nairobi alone. Few were responsibly
disposed of, let alone recycled, hence the 24 tonnes of plastic
waste that was collected across the 188 square kilometres of LakeNakuru National Park in 2016, a protected area of spectacular
natural beauty that is home to 56 species of mammal (including
lions, white rhino, zebra, baboons and waterbuck), 450 species
of bird, most famously flamingos, and about 550 species of plant.
The environment can only benefit from the ban. “I am excited
my eforts have yielded this,” says Wakhungu, whose masters
degree was in petroleum geology and who has spent most of her
distinguished career in the energy sector, having worked in the
Ministry of Energy and Regional Development, investigating
geothermal energy in the Rift Valley. “It is something I have been
yearning for.” The blight caused by plastic bags was becoming
an “environmental nightmare”.JUDI WAKHUNGU
Kenyan politician who won her long battle to ban plastic bags
Joint
winnerSome 24 tonnes of plastic waste was recovered
from Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya
in 2016. Plastic bags in particular have been
a huge problem in the country, where many
locals are used to washing them in rivers
in an efort to re-use them, but in the process
leaving many to pollute rivers and
endanger wildlife. Use of them is now
banned, with heavy fines and up to four
years’ imprisonment for ofendersPHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES