#2 Disposable plastics manufacturers
To look into the source of disposable plastics and the new non-woven bags, we’re going to the Industrial Area where most Nairobi manufacturers are located.
Low wages and very short-term contracts for workers.
As we’re diving deeper into the Industrial Area, the scenery is changing: big trucks, long fences along the road, resource finders going through giant piles of industrial waste and matatus bringing workers to and from the factories. We’re told that three-month contracts are the longest to be around here and that most workers are employed on a daily basis. This allows the employers to avoid paying benefits and prevents the workers from forming unions. On the other hand, as controversial as it sounds, the absence of both long-term employer-employee relationships and unemployment benefits in Kenya might have contributed to a smoother shutdown of the plastic bag manufacturers.
Nipping the plastic bag issue in the bud has proved to be an effective measure.
A number of respondents said that shutting down plastic bag manufacturers is one of the major reasons the third ban has endured. No plastic bags made in the country means no black market; no black market means no illegal alternatives to the new bags. Indeed, during our research, we didn’t see a single plastic bag around the city.
Little or no consultation with those potentially affected by the ban results in a lack of both accessible solutions and overall clarity about the new policy.
A rural community of artisans we know have greatly struggled since the ban. With limited accessible solutions in the sticks they have had to make do by using holey bags with tape over the gaps. Then they found a source of recycled bags, which are on the pending approval list from NEMA. Meanwhile. the artisans have come up with another workaround, namely to make their own bags using rolled plastic sheets and a heat sealer. It seemed that, technically, it wouldn’t be considered a carrier bag and therefore wouldn’t be affected by the ban. However, there was no easy way to either confirm approval for this bagging or to anticipate whether this solution would be included in the list of banned products in the future.
The long-term sustainability of the new bags is highly questionable and the credibility and true motives of the authorities behind the ban have been met with skepticism.
New regulations require all plastic bags that weren’t banned (e.g. garbage bags, food packaging, etc) to bear a stamp listing the contacts of the manufacturer and the client. The idea is to hold both parties accountable for the proper disposable of the bags. Although sounding good in principle, it’s not clear how this system works in practice and who in the end is held responsible for recycling — manufacturers or buyers. We asked the manager of the factory that prints these stamps what will happen should the authorities find a bag with our contacts in the street, he replied that nothing is going to happen and it’s just a formality.
Discussing the feasibility of the artisan’s workaround idea with a factory manager we bring up the new non-woven carrier bags and ask about their sustainability. Looking at a non-woven bag sceptically the boss says, “These are worse than the old bags and will probably be banned soon as well”.
Later on, we spoke on the phone with a NEMA representative (whose name we can’t disclose), who said, ”The new bags are made with biodegradable materials and can be recycled. Made of nylon, no plastic component is allowed”. However, on the shopping bags we came across during our study we couldn’t find any labels indicating what material they are made from or get a clear answer from anyone about where and how they can be recycled.
New non-woven bags are likely not biodegradable, but recyclable. Just as regular disposable plastic bags.
During our research we noticed that everyone we interviewed used interchangeably the words ‘nylon’, ‘biodegradable’, ‘recyclable’ and ‘not plastic’ when describing the new shopping bags. Looking for more information about what material they may actually be made of, we contacted a company on alibaba.com that sells bags that look identical to most of the bags we saw in Nairobi. They replied that the bags are made from polypropylene fibres, supposedly recycled and recyclable. Our question about the contacts of any recycling facilities that could process the non-woven bags remained unanswered. Looking at other sources, we found out that while the polypropylene non-woven bags are actually recyclable, the recycling cost is almost the same as that for the disposable polypropylene plastic bags.
The system dynamics that reinforce or obstruct the reduction of environmental pollution.
At the end of each chapter, we post a summary of our systems analysis. We list the enablers and inhibitors — the dynamics that respectively increase or lower one of the positive system outcomes — e.g. reduction of environmental pollution.
(+) Enablers
- Nipping a problem in the bud. Although Kenya was the largest supplier of plastic bags in Africa, the government made a bold move by declaring the manufacture of disposable plastic bags illegal. No alternatives to the new shopping bags are available — there’s nothing to break the law with.
- Unregulated employment, no unemployment benefits, no responsibilities to workers — all make it easier to shut down one manufacturing line and start a new one.
- Accessible technology and a work force. Manufacturing of the new bags is moving from China to Kenya. New (or upgraded) factories are likely to be quickly equipped with machinery imported from China, and short-term workers are readily available.
(-) Inhibitors
- Lack of clarity and transparency about new solutions. Although new bags are positioned as sustainable, the materials they are made from remained unclear to us and may as well be polypropylene, a petroleum-based plastic.
- Targeting one negative outcome (i.e. discarded shopping bags), rather than looking at the system holistically. Although the new policy has been effective in removing visible pollution in Nairobi, we couldn’t find any evidence of it looking at the plastics system end-to-end (i.e. considering all steps from manufacturing to recycling) and consulting with all its stakeholders.
