Plastic bags and other rubbish

If you wanted to give an example of a draconian measure, you need go no further than this :

“Article 104 of the Environment law bans the importation, production, storage, use, sale and distribution of polythene bags. According to the law, anyone found in possession of a polythene bag may be sentenced to one to five years’ imprisonment or a fine ranging from five million to 50 million francs.”

You can see the original article on the New Times website. Of course this law is not implemented as it is stated here, although it is true that plastic bags acre confiscated from passengers arriving at Kigali Airport.

The shop where we buy bread has most of the loaves and rolls in plastic bags. When I ask about this, people believe that there are different kinds of plastic bags, only some of which are affected. This may well be true, although I haven’t managed to confirm it yet, but the use of plastic for packaging is certainly reasonably common. What is interesting is that Rwanda is very largely clear of the littering by plastic bags which characterises some other African countries and which led to the passing of this law.

There is a wider issue about packaging and about waste disposal generally which the country needs to deal with and quite urgently. Virtually all manufactured goods are imported and the number of goods which are overpackaged western-style will definitely increase. The modern supermarkets in Kigali are already producing a lot of packaging waste and it will need more than a draconian law against polythene bags to ensure that there is infrastructure in place to deal withy this.