confusion over kaveera ban
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July 4, 2015 Confusion Over Kaveera BanTRANSCRIPT
Confusion over kaveera ban
By Ronald Musoke
On April 15 the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) started to enforce the ban on light weight
against NEMA enforcing the ban. It said the government was lifting the ban immediately ‘to allow for consultations.’
In an unusual move, however, NEMA took to the airwaves to in-‐‑
by raiding the biggest supermarkets. There was confusion as -‐‑
ity, Shoprite and Uchumi, and seized tonnes of the lightweight plastic shopping bags commonly referred to as ‘kaveera.’ Was the
prime minister? Were their jobs safe?Many wondered if this time
time NEMA had said they were to implement the law on polythene -‐‑
another statement cancelling its April 14 position. It said, following ‘consultations’,the government had decided to go ahead with the ban while consultations continue.The statement said the ban applies to the importation, local manufacture, sale or use of polythene car-‐‑rier bags but would exclude polythene packaging materials for use in agriculture, industries, medicine, research and science, sanitation, construction, and exports. It also directed manufacturers and distrib-‐‑utors to establish polythene collection centres across the country and intensify public sensitisation on polythene waste management.
-‐‑rial for customers. Some improvised with boxes, others advised shoppers to carry satchels, and enterprising business people intro-‐‑
Menace: A drainage system in Kampala clogged with polythene bags. INDEPENDENT/JIMMY SIYA
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up and tasked with preparing a Cabinet
on kaveera. Throughout the next month of May, shoppers appeared to accept that it was the end of kaveera.
Confused government?But as Ugandans waited for the min-‐‑
isterial policy statement, on June 18, Jim Muhwezi, the minister of information and national guidance released a new statement saying the government had lifted the ban on plastic bags. Apparently the government had
acknowledged the ‘controversy’ surround-‐‑ing the implementation of the ban and
study the issue again. Interestingly, the next day, on June 19, another statement from his
NEMA issued their own statement the same day, saying the ban on plastic carrier bags is still in forceSo why does the government keep issu-‐‑
ing these confusing statements to the pub-‐‑lic? And who exactly is responsible for the policy confusion?
It was later enshrined in the Finance Act
Bags and Other Plastics for Exceptional Use)
NEMA had failed to implement it.Part of the problem is that the govern-‐‑
ment is caught in between two very power-‐‑ful constituencies, the environmentalists and the manufacturers. The manufacturers, recyclers, and traders who have been using ‘consultative meetings’ to lobby the govern-‐‑ment to lift the ban say they have invested
ready to see their investments go to waste. They also cite job losses to thousands of employees. But the environmentalists insist the economic, health and social costs far
distinguishing plastic bags of 30 microns from those above 30 microns. Technically, a micron is a unit of length
that equals one millionth of a metre accord-‐‑ing to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. In layman’s language, however, 30 microns is about as thick as two human hairs. In other words, very thin kaveera. The problem, therefore, is not that bags of
-‐‑guish. Rather the problem is that the law is
Shamim Nabatanzi, an administrator at the Uganda Plastic Manufacturers and Recyclers Association (UPMRA) told The Independent
Ugandan towns of Kampala, Mukono, Jinja, Wakiso and Mbarara. She says, however,
UPMRA has half that number registered as
Presumably then, each of these is manu-‐‑facturing the same ubiquitous black, white, or yellow light weight shopping bags and the even lighter transparent bags used in packing at smaller shops. Most of these bags are unmarked. Even if NEMA found that some of them were above 30 microns, it is virtually impossible to say which fac-‐‑tory manufactures which. In other words, NEMA cannot scrutinize each batch. That is why it favours a blanket ban on polythene shopping bags of below 30 microns. But Nabatanzi says it is also wrong for
the government authorities to focus on local manufacturers when up to 80% of poly-‐‑thene shopping bags used in the country is imported from Kenya.“Like it or not, kaveera is a hot cake (and)
even if our members are clamped down, there are many others producing kaveera ‘underground’ in homes and remember
80% of the kaveera comes from outside Uganda through smuggling,” she says.Since it started in mid-‐‑April this year,
critics of NEMA say it rushed into taking action following the refusal by Parliament’s
provisions of the July 2009 Finance Act that prohibited the manufacture or importation and distribution of plastic bags below 30 microns.Whatever the reason, Gerald Musoke
Sawula, the NEMA deputy executive direc-‐‑tor told The Independenton June 22 that NEMA would not relent on the polythene bag ban. But he quickly added that the ban would only work when manufacturers stop producing and buyers stop buying. “Kaveera has been with Uganda for the
last 25 years and therefore, implementing
take years.”Beatrice Anywar Atim, the shadow minis-‐‑
ter for water and environment and a mem-‐‑
in Parliament supports NEMA. She told
The Independenton June 22 that the kaveera manufacturers cannot keep asking for time because they have nothing to show from the grace period they got last time. “They have done nothing,” she says, “It’s just greed.”Anywar says the kaveera ban has since
2009 been frustrated by some cabinet minis-‐‑
Dr. Francis Epetait, the MP for Ngora -‐‑
culture, Animal Industry and Fisheries told The Independent that many Ugandans are
-‐‑ing food cooked in kaveera. He said kaveera releases cancer-‐‑causing substances into the food. “It is annoying and frustrating to see the
he said, “Those lifting the ban on kaveera, deep in their mind know that kaveera is
clogging the drainage system. In the rural areas, people are misusing kaveera.” In addition, when kaveera is burnt in the
open, especially under low temperatures, it creates dioxin-‐‑like poisonous materials which cause cancer, skin diseases, endocri-‐‑
-‐‑sion and human fertility. He said NEMA needs to be given credit and support instead of being frustrated by the government. On the issue of people losing jobs because
of the ban, Epetait says people should not get jobs at the expense of other people’s health. “What percentage of recycling is going on compared to the volumes being put out in the environment?”Asked about what she thinks about the
ban on kaveera by NEMA, Nabatanzi says the only problem UPMRA has with NEMA is that they do not come out clearly to say the gauge of the kaveera that they have banned. “We also agree that it is dangerous to the
environment but it is also important to man-‐‑age it,” she says, adding that she is not sure if the manufacturers increased the gauge of the kaveera to even 100 microns that would
-‐‑tion for kaveera.“The money NEMA has used to enforce
the ban could have been used to sensitize
users who do so.” “Ugandans need to be educated on how
how to sort the waste.” “If kaveera was, for instance, being sorted well and stockpiled, our companies would buy this assorted kaveera at competitive prices,” she said.Nabatanzi says, of the 30 registered poly-‐‑
thene manufacturers, 20 have recycling sec-‐‑tions manufacturing products such as plas-‐‑tic pipes, plastic tanks, plastic sandals and plastic bins. These, she says, recycle over 15million kilogrammes of kaveera every month but that is because they are operat-‐‑
Ruhakana Rugunda Jim Muhwezi
July 03 -‐ 09, 2015
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invested close to Shs 77 billion ($25m) over
over 3000 workers although at the moment some of the workers have been sent away because of the current ban. Nabatanzi says if the ban goes ahead and UPMRA mem-‐‑bers go out of business, then the govern-‐‑
with the manufacturers. “The government will have to compen-‐‑
sate the manufacturers because it is the government which told them to come and invest here.”
Kaveera the hot cakeInformation on how much kaveera is
produced, used and dumped in Ugandan environment is scanty but according to NEMA, close to 40 million kilogrammes of polythene bag waste is released into the environment and most of it accumulates in the soil each year within the country.On the other hand, UPMRA say they are
still compiling information regarding how much kaveera is produced in the country every year. But their estimates point to 80% of lightweight polythene shopping bags used in the country being imported from Kenya. URA disagrees. James Kisale, a
The Independenton June 25 that it is wrong for UPMRA to give the impression that smuggling contributes the biggest percent-‐‑age of kaveera in Uganda. He, for instance, says in the whole of
2014, URA impounded about 14,000 kilo-‐‑grammes of kaveera entering Uganda from Kenya. He added that as far as this year is concerned, URA has so far impounded
Kisale wondered if indeed Kenya was contributing up to 80% of the available kaveera in the country, then why would the local manufacturers and recyclers be mak-‐‑ing noise to ensure that the ban is lifted.
also insist manufacturers should consider the millions of farming-‐‑related jobs that thrive when the soils are not damaged by kaveera.
-‐‑
lines handling kaveera production hardly employ a handful of workers. This, she says, means that the recycling plants cannot go out of business because of the ban since they are engaged into producing other products for the market.Irene Ssekyana, the national coordinator
at Greenwatch, a local NGO that promotes public participation in sustainable use and management of the environment told The Independenthave been promising the country since 2008 on a strategy that would ensure that kaveera is well managed within the coun-‐‑
try. “They promised to set up collecting centres where kaveera users would dump their plastic waste and make it easier for recyclers to pick it. They brought in machin-‐‑ery to engage in recycling but also they have continued manufacturing the banned gauge of polythene carrier bags,” she said.Ssekyana says this is just a ploy to buy
public sympathy, adding that the lobby-‐‑
interests.In 2002, Greenwatch brought a case
before the High Court in Kampala arguing that the rampant and uncontrolled use of polythene bags poses a danger to Uganda’s environment and therefore violates the rights of Ugandans to a clean and healthy environment.Greenwatch sought a court injunction
directing the government to restore the environment to the state it was in before plastic pollution. Greenwatch also sought an order directing the importers, manufac-‐‑turers, distributors of plastics to pay for the costs of the environmental restoration.A decade later, the High Court ruled that
indeed plastic bags are a danger to Ugan-‐‑dans and therefore the government needs
urgency.”Going forward, Greenwatch has formed
a loose platform of about 10 environmental -‐‑
tation of the ban. She says civil society agen-‐‑cies are going to rally the public to ensure that the ban is implemented. “NEMA needs a lot of support at the
moment because although they are trying their best, they are also being pulled and torn from all sorts of directions.”“We commend NEMA with the way they
have taken on the issue. We shall support
them all the way and we shall see the best way to engage the citizens and take the
other option is suing the manufacturers or supermarkets that continue defying the ban. “We will identify one and sue them as an example to the rest,” she said.She added that if investors want to
blackmail the government using jobs and investment, they can go ahead and do so but Uganda is not going to have investors coming here to destroy the environment and refuse to replenish it.Meanwhile Anywar says she also intends
to mobilize Ugandans just like she did dur-‐‑ing the Mabira Campaign in 2007 to shun supermarkets that will continue using kaveera.
Way forwardAccording to the Washington-‐‑based
Earth Policy Institute, around the world, about one trillion single-‐‑use plastic bags are distributed every year and as a result
waterways as well as choke animals, besides blemishing the natural landscape.Many countries have responded to the
kaveera menace by implementing bans or fees. The Earth Policy Institute argues that Denmark’s 1993 plastic shopping bag policy has probably been one of the most success-‐‑ful around the world.
-‐‑ers by asking them to pay a tax based on the bag’s weight but stores were allowed to pass the cost onto consumers either in bag charges or absorbed into the prices of
usage in the country.
Alternatives: NEMA wants Ugandans to embrace durable shopping bags to save the environment which is choking on kaveera. COURTESY PHOTO
July 03 -‐ 09, 2015
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