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In an effort to reduce plastic bag pollution, Kenya has introduced tough laws that will result in a prison term of up to 4 years or a maximum of $40,000 for any Kenyan producing, selling or even using plastic bags, although initial enforcement will target manufacturers and suppliers.
"The East African nation joins more than 40 other countries that have banned, partly banned or taxed single use plastic bags, including China, France, Rwanda and Italy."
Bags can take 500-1000 years to decompose, in the mean time killing or harming wildlife and entering the human food chain.
What is being done about plastic bag pollution where you live?
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Kenya Introduces Big Penalties for Plastic Bags
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Remember Darwin; building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.
(Score: 3, Informative) by OrugTor on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:16PM (11 children)
In Arizona the state passed a law banning municipalities from passing ordinances banning plastic bags. So we're some way behind Kenya ... and getting further.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by crafoo on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:28PM (10 children)
No. Municipal governments should not be concerning themselves with the type of bags people are using. They should be concentrating 100% of effort and money into providing basic services of civilization: clean water, useable roads, useful education curriculum, youth centers, public health departments, fire stations. Libraries. Maybe a conservatory. A clean, safe public pool. Some public soccer fields and tennis courts. Planting trees.
The state did the right thing here. If there are local bureaucrats drafting proposals and laws on citizen's bag usage they should be identified and publicly shamed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:44PM (1 child)
This comment should be recorded for posterity. "Idiots like this are why the Earth is a toxic nightmare, they couldn't see past their own noses so they didn't care about polluting the planet. Remember, ignorance is not an admirable trait. Have the courage to explore new ideas and put the good ones to use."
Citizen's can use whatever bag they want, but if they want free shitty ones from the store then they'll pay for the convenience. Seriously, this isn't about personal freedoms being infringed by big gov. All you crazies need to drink some more coffee before posting.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday August 29 2017, @05:04PM
Boycott Kenyan coffee! Until they repeal this unfair law. Kenya has a bad leader who dreams of becoming a dictator. Radical environmentalism must be stopped by whatever means necessary. The United States will not stand by as Kenya crumbles. 🇺🇸
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday August 29 2017, @05:17PM
Why did you leave out important stuff like sewage treatment and waste disposal? Plastic bags are a big problem in landfills.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 29 2017, @05:23PM (6 children)
No. Municipal governments should not be concerning themselves with the type of bags people are using.
So when these bags destroy the municipal stormwater systems [patch.com] who should pay to fix them?
I guess being anti-environment is better than being fiscally responsible, eh?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @05:30PM (5 children)
Seriously, I wish I could believe that all the crap comments are trolls or astroturfing, but that is wishful thinking. Reminds me of a story an older coworker told me.
This older guy was a retired pilot who was working to keep busy. A total conservative, but from traveling the world he gained an appreciation for natural beauty and understood the importance of keeping our environment healthy. So he tells me about this one friend of his who had some old growth trees in his backyard and he was planning on cutting them down. This coworker tells him not to do it and the guy responds with "What are you, some kind of tree hugging communist?" That there is the amount of crazy we're dealing with, people associating environmental concerns with communism. Hard to get much wackier than that, but you can see it winding through this entire article's thread.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday August 29 2017, @07:34PM
The fundamental problem is that people are astoundingly stupid, and that extends even to the supposed "nerds" on this site and ones like it. We're really just a bunch of overgrown apes with too-large brains, so we figured out written language and some technology, but we can't figure out how to get past basic tribalism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @09:06PM (3 children)
I suspect you misunderstood the situation.
Telling somebody what to do with their private property, or something growing on their private property, is a core behavior of communism and communists.
If your "conservative" co-worker truly was conservative, he wouldn't have told the other guy to not cut down the trees. Instead, the "conservative" co-worker would have immediately offered to purchase the property and trees in question. Or at the very least, he would have offered to purchase the trees, and would have paid to have the trees safely extracted from this other fellow's property and instead replanted on his own property.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @11:18PM (2 children)
Holy crap, the insanity that rolls through here... you missed the point in your attempt to maintain environmentalist == communist. *golf clap*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @12:17AM
The comment you replied to doesn't even mention the word "environmentalist" or any related word in any way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @07:12AM
No, only you think that point is being made. The other AC was stating tree-hugger=enviromentalist and guy who tells people what to do==communist.