•UN says achieving zero waste requires actions at all levels.
•It says the government can incentivise waste through legislation while businesses can incorporate circular design to lessen and stop generating waste.
Image: FILE
Countries have been challenged to adopt a circular economy in waste management to address climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
United Nations Environment Programme and UN-Habitat have asked countries to ditch the "take-make-waste" model and embrace the circular model.
“The world is generating waste at unmanageable scales,” they said.
The concept of circular economy is whereby resources are reused and recycled to minimise waste and maximise efficiency.
Among the wastes produced include plastics, food waste, electronics, textiles and chemicals.
UN says some of these wastes when mismanaged endanger human health and the environment.
“To safeguard our future, it is time to shift towards zero waste and circular economy.”
UNEP says a zero-waste approach aims to keep waste out of landfills, incinerators and the oceans.
“It means to refuse, reduce, redesign, reuse and recycle so that we throw away as little as possible,” the agency says, adding that achieving zero waste requires actions at all levels.
It further says the government can incentivise waste through legislation while businesses can incorporate circular design to lessen and stop generating waste.
UN says consumers can avoid single-use products and opt for reusable ones for an inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable future for all.
Kenya has already passed the Sustainable Waste Management Act 2022, which is set to transition the country from a linear way of managing waste to a circular one.
The Act was assented to on July 8 last year effectively making it a law.
The new law gives counties two years to develop their own legislation in consultation with the national government, the public and other parties.
The National Environment Management Authority on March 25 last year gazetted 108 environment inspectors to help in the enforcement of devolved functions in the country.
An environmental inspector can inspect or cause to be inspected any activity to determine whether that activity is harmful to the environment and may take into account the evidence obtained from that inspection in any decision on whether or not to serve an environmental restoration order.
Such inspectors will perform their duties within gazetted jurisdiction while adhering to the environmental inspector’s code of conduct.
The authority carries out regular inspections on a day-to-day basis before giving regular feedback to customers.
The Constitution of Kenya 2010 devolved control of air pollution, noise pollution, other public nuisances and outdoor advertising.
Counties will have to enact regulations prescribing investment in sustainable waste management.
This includes waste collection, separation, treatment, processing, recovery and disposal.
Each county will also establish a material recovery facility for the final sorting, segregation, composting and recycling of waste.
It will transport residual waste to a long-term storage or disposal facility or landfill.
Under the new law, those who fail to segregate waste at the household level will part with a fine of Sh20, 000.
Alternatively, they might be slapped with a term not exceeding six months in prison or both.
Segregating waste makes sorting, recycling, reusing and reducing waste easier.
Much less goes into landfills.
Kenya also banned the use of single-use carrier bags in February 2017.
The ban went into effect on August 28 of that year and applied to carrier bags and flat bags used for commercial and household packaging.
Before 2017, about 100 million plastic bags were used in Kenyan supermarkets every year.
Being found with banned plastics in Kenya attracts a fine of between Sh2 million and Sh4 million or a jail term of one to two years—or both.
On June 5, 2019, Kenya banned single-use plastics on beaches and in national parks, forests, and conservation areas.
The ban prohibits visitors from carrying plastic water bottles, cups, disposable plates, cutlery, and straws into national parks, forests, beaches, and conservation areas.
Initially, plastic bottles were on the government's radar as they pollute the environment.
Plastic pollution has over time surfed onto beaches, settling onto the ocean floor and rising through the food chain onto dinner tables.
Experts have already warned that there will be more plastics in the ocean than fish by 2050.
UNEP says at least 11 million tonnes of plastic are dumped into water bodies every year.
This is the equivalent of one garbage truck being dumped every minute.
The impacts of plastic production and pollution on the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss and pollution are a catastrophe in the making.
UNEP says exposure to plastics can harm human health, potentially affecting fertility, hormonal, metabolic and neurological activity and open burning of plastics contributes to air pollution.