How youth stand to benefit by ending plastic use

President Uhuru Kenyatta together with fellow Head of States during the official opening of two-day events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Environment Programme at UN Complex in Gigiri, Nairobi City County.

There are moments when being a Kenyan in a foreign country makes one proud. You may have experienced such courtesy of our athletes. But I have experienced another.

That feeling when, after buying stuff in a foreign country and the seller innocently packs them in plastic bags, and hands you, then you nicely decline, reminding them that “my country” banned single-use plastic, and that you may be arrested on arrival at the home airport if such bags were spotted in your luggage… Some guess the country right, while others smile and say it is the right thing to do.

Many people have had an unpleasant encounter with plastic. Our livestock’s intestines are messed after feeding on plastic. Sometimes this is only discovered when they die. Poultry get entangled in carelessly disposed plastic. Birds in the air are not spared, and neither are other lives in the wild, oceans and rivers.

That world leaders attending the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA 5-2) in Nairobi took this matter a notch higher this week, endorsing proposals to have, by 2024, a legally binding international treaty in a bid to “End plastic pollution” is motivating.

There is hope that the world could be relieved from the devastating pollution plastic causes to the environment. But we cannot sit pretty and wait for 2024.

For instance, despite Kenya banning single-use plastic home and away in 2017, there are still traces in circulation, and which are used quite openly in markets. Some people within and across borders continue to benefit from single-use plastic manufacture and sale.

As the International Negotiating Group embarks on the treaty endorsed by at least 175 representatives and heads of member states, more action should come from manufacturers. The industry can play a big role to ensure transition to alternative products that will give them return on investment.

The manufacturers can work with governments and other stakeholders, backed by research and plans read out at the close of UNEA5-2, to promote a circular economy that will benefit all and save biodiversity. These same manufacturers can grab the opportunity to collect from communities, plastic waste such as used oil containers, industrially biodegrade those they can, and where economically sound, and have others reused or recycled, even if partially.

Of the many negative effects of plastic that UN outlines, one hits hard. It says plastic, consumed, “can harm human health, potentially affecting fertility, hormonal, metabolic and neurological activity,” while “burning of plastics pollutes the air.” This is scarier to the childbearing and young generation.

This huge workforce, the strong and well-educated demography must not ignore experts warning on plastic use, as was the case with past generations when the world was told of repercussions of continued use of fossil fuels.

Nature will always find a way to reward good actions and punish humans for errors of commission or omission. Let’s be the change.