Last 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 handedout 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 73 square miles of Lake
Nakuru 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’m 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’s something I’ve 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 ofenders