•Bureau of standards yet to come up with standards on the quality of non- woven carrier bags
•Nema had written to manufacturers and supermarkets telling them to stop using low quality bags by December 31, 2018
Nema has blamed Kenya Bureau of Standards for delay in setting standards for the quality of reusable non-woven bags.
There were no readily available alternatives, when the National Environment Management Authority banned plastic bags in 2017, director general Geoffrey Wahungu said yesterday.
“The woven bags appeared in the market and by then, the gauge was good, affordable and could be reused multiple times as opposed to single use,” Wahungu said.
He said they engaged Kebs to develop a standard to maintain quality of reusable products soon after the alternative non-woven polypropylene carrier bags were introduced in the market.
Wahungu was responding to issues raised by the parliamentary committee on Environment and Natural Resources at Continental House.
On March 19, Nema issued a notice banning the manufacture, importation, supply, distribution and use of non-woven polypropylene bags. The ban is effective from April 1, 2019.
He explained that by the time the ban was started, there were only three local manufacturers who were supplying the non-woven bags but others came in and started producing very thin low-quality bags.
In November 2018, Nema wrote to manufacturers and supermarkets telling them to stop using low quality bags by December 31, 2018.
“They came to us and requested for more time so we gave them three months. The notice that was issued last week was a reminder that the three months are over and they should stop using the products,” Wahungu said, adding that all they wanted are alternative carrier bags that can be reused many times.
He clarified that it was not a new ban, but implementation of the ban seeking the removal of low quality products from the market. "We have also seen that the goodwill we gave is not being reciprocated,” the Nema boss said.
Local manufactures want the agency to extend the ban to six months to clear their stock.
Last week, the Kenya Association of Manufacturers blamed the lack of standards to govern quality on the flooding of substandard versions in the market.
Wahungu said, “Our problem is reusability. We started with a bag which could be used 10 times. Now we have a bag which is used only once. This means we have multiplied the problem 10 times. This has content of plastic and we don’t want to allow it into the environment. Otherwise it will be a runaway problem and we will go back to the problems we had with the polythene bags.”
The woven bags in the market are not biodegradable because they have plastic and since its woven, it breaks down to some fragments which disperse much faster than the polythene plastics but they have a pollutant defect.
He said “the small gunny bags that are used by rice traders in Mwea are good example of alternatives that can be used since they are reusable.”