I HAVE followed comments some people have passed after the Government proposal to increase custom duty on plastic bag carriers from 25 per cent to 40 per cent in next year’s National Budget.
Some people are happy with the move while others are not saying carrying goods would be a challenge because there is likely to be a shortage of plastic carrier bags.
I find this comment rather too ridiculous because whether we like or not plastic waste has negatively impacted on the environment.
Anyway they are entitled to their opinion. But I would also like add my voice to this development.
It is a good move though, but banning should have been the best so as to stimulate investment in the paper carrier bag making business which is environmentally friendly.
To date, more than 40 countries and municipalities globally have instituted plastic bag bans.
The United Nations Environmental Programme Secretariat has recommended a ban on all plastic bags.
Obviously, sudden banning would have its own consequences but the ultimate benefit outweighs the tax component.
Moreover, setting up a paper bag manufacturing plant or plants is idea because they would create the much desired jobs for the local people especially the youths.
I am sure the availability of funds under the Citizen Economic Empowerment Commission would be an opportunity for the local people to set up such an undertaking.
It would, however, be absurd to see a foreign company setting up a paper carrier bag plant or worse still allow, for example, chain stores bring in carrier bags from their countries of origin.
Of course not being an expert in that aspect, but I am sure the paper carrier bag manufacturing business is not as completed as manufacturing a motor vehicle.
Therefore, it is high time the local people were supported to set up these manufacturing plants as this would not create wealth but also clean the environment.
In the event that a ban was instituted and paper carrier bags manufacturing plants or plants are set up, I would thereafter, propose that all foreign chain stores sign contracts to enable them procure the carriers locally.
Doing so will create both direct and indirect employment for the youths.
Mind you, the civil service cannot employ the whole population, so the private sector should be encouraged to create more jobs by creating the necessary environment.
However, as duty on importation of plastic bag carriers comes into effect next year, the Statutory Instrument on Extended Producer Responsibility should be implemented.
The principal of EPR places an obligation on producers of products that have the potential to pollute the environment to employ measures to reduce waste through treatment, reclamation, re-use, recovery and recycling.
In short, the company that produces, for example, bottled water would be held responsible if it fails to take of care of the empty bottles that would be littered if SI on EPR is in force.
Companies would have to find ways of ensuring that the bottles are collected and taken care of according to the law.
So in the field of waste management, EPR is a strategy designed to promote the integration of environmental costs associated with goods throughout their life cycles into the market price of the products.
EPR or Product Stewardship is systems-based solutions to reduce the life-cycle environmental and societal impacts of products and packaging.
In other words, EPR is a product stewardship policy framework to help create sustainable systems that continually reuse the materials in commerce according to their highest and best use.
It is a foundational circular economic policy that helps increase the redesign, reuse and recycling of products and packaging.
This is done by shifting funding and sometimes programme management for these services from local governments, taxpayers and ratepayers to the producers of products and packaging and their consumers.
The EPR policy has two related features, the first one being shifting financial and management responsibility, with government oversight, upstream to the producer and away from the public sector.
The second one is providing incentives to producers to incorporate environmental considerations into the design of their products and packaging.
In an EPR system, the costs of redesign, reuse, recycling, composting and even some disposal options for consumer products and packaging are included in the retail price.
This approach ensures that the costs of end-of-use management are born by producers and consumers, rather than externalised onto society or the environment.
The proper environmental management of the product and its package for their highest and best use become part of the costs of doing business.
With EPR, manufacturers would have incentives to design their products to use less material, less toxics, and be recycled at the end of their useful life – turning what was formerly waste into the food for industry and the next generation of products.
Therefore, as Zambia’s population continues to grow, so does the amount of garbage that people produce.
On-the-go lifestyles require easily disposable products, such as soda cans or bottles of water, but the accumulation of these products is leading to increasing amounts of plastic pollution around the country.
The indefinite period of time that it takes for the average plastic bag to breakdown can be literally hundreds of years.
Every bag that ends up in the woodlands of the country threatens the natural progression of wildlife.
Because the break down rate is so slow the chances that the bag will harmlessly go away are extremely slim.
Throughout the world plastic bags are responsible for suffocation deaths of woodland animals as well as inhibiting soil nutrients.
The majority of plastic bags are made of polypropylene, a material that is made from petroleum and natural gas.
Both of these materials are non-renewable fossil fuel-based resources and through their extraction and production, they create greenhouse gases, which contribute to global climate change.
Governments that are opposed to full bans on plastic bags, another option is to institute a plastic bag tax, where consumers would pay a small fee for each plastic bag.
Strategy has been proven to greatly reduce plastic bag usage by consumers.
In Ireland, where this fee was instituted in 2002, plastic bag usage has been decreased by about 90 per cent.
Several other countries and cities are now also considering such a tax, including the United Kingdom, Australia and New York City.
Rwanda has been plastic bag free since 2008. The country completely banned plastic bags when other countries around the world started imposing taxes on plastic bags.
Offenders smuggling plastic bags can even face jail time.
According to the British Broadcasting Cooperation you won’t see plastic bags floating around streets, hanging from trees, and plugging up drains in Rwanda today.
The country was still recovering from the economic and emotional destruction of genocide in the mid-1990s.
As part of a revival plan, leaders decided to emphasise environmental protection, resulting in a series of reforms that included the bag measure.
It was not the first national bag ban as Bangladesh passed one in 2002 but Rwanda’s law has serious teeth. It prohibits the manufacture, use, importation and sale of the bags.
Owners of businesses that violate the ban face up to a year in prison and anyone caught carrying a bag faces stiff fines.
Businesses that flout the rules are raided; travellers who enter Rwanda’s borders are subject to searches.
Strict enforcement has led to some revolt among small business owners and the growth of a black market trade in plastic bags.
But there’s been less ire from bag manufacturers, who were encouraged through tax incentives and recycling contracts to convert their businesses.
Rwanda’s audacious ban, however harsh it may be, seems to have been effective.
Numerous international environmental agencies have praised the prohibition for helping clean up the streets of the country, especially the capital city of Kigali.
So as plastic is composed of major toxic pollutants, it has the potential to cause great harm to the environment in the form of air, water and land pollution.
Put simply, plastic pollution is when plastic has gathered in an area and has begun to negatively impact the natural environment and create problems for plants, wildlife and even human population.
Often this includes killing plant life and posing dangers to local animals.
Plastic is an incredibly useful material, but it is also made from toxic compounds known to cause illness, and because it is meant for durability, it is not biodegradable.
ENVIRONMENTAL TIP:
Did you know that it takes 450 years on average for a plastic to degrade.
Different kinds of plastic can degrade at different times, but the average time for a plastic bottle to completely degrade is at least 450 years.
It can even take some bottles 1000 years to biodegrade! That’s a long time for even the smallest bottle.
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