Monitoring plastic bag ban a challenge: Official

By LUKE KAMA
THE Conservation and Environment Protection Authority needs a mechanism in place to implement the ban on non-biodegradable plastic shopping bags, an official says.
Ricks Tanda, a senior officer at the authority in charge of implementing the ban, told The National yesterday that the ban imposed by them was still in effect.
“But monitoring and ensuring compliance was the problem.
“Since the ban came into effect in 2016, we have called for industries, importers and distributors of shopping plastic bags to apply for permits to import, sell or distribute,” he said.
“Since then we have received applications and have given up to 100 permits.
“They were given permits to import plastic bags for one year. Some have lapsed but we are yet to receive their applications for permit renewals.”
He said some permit holders were in the process of renewing their permits but there was no mechanism to ensure the effective implementation of the ban.
“For every shipment a permit holder wants to bring to the country, they inform us that they want to import such quantity from such a place.
“So we have to assess that independently apart from a permit application,” he said.
“So we get samples of the plastic and test to see whether it’s biodegradable or not.
“Then we give them the approval to import and we will have clear that shipment with Customs officers at the wharf.
“But right now, we are not doing this and that is a real challenge.”
He said another issue was illegal imports.
“Some companies and distributors are copying the permit number we issues to our permit holders and are importing illegally.
“That is another challenge. But right now, Cepa does not have the funds to check.”