The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
August 29, 2017

Kenya Passes World's Strictest Ban against Plastic Bags
-------------------------------------------------------

Kenya has passed the world's strictest ban against plastic bags in
efforts to protect the environment and wildlife. Under the new law,
people producing, selling or even using plastic bags could now face up
to four years in prison. This is the Kenyan environmental minister Judi
Wakhungui.

Judi Wakhungui: "The challenge that we have at the moment is that most
of these bags are just littered; and then you find them in our water
bodies, we find them littering our landscapes, they are also ingested by
our livestock. The problem with this is that now we are also ingesting
these microplastics, and this is a danger to our health. So this is the
reason why we decided to start a phase-out of banning the plastic bags,
starting with the carrier polythene bags."

More than 40 countries now have some types of laws aimed at decreasing
the use of plastic bags.


.