It is widely known that Kenya have already banned plastic since 28th Aug. 2017.
Since then, the non woven bag, which is regarded as the best alternative is in great demand. Many bags and bag machinery rush into Kenya.
As many plastic bag machines are reluctantly sold or sold at low prices, new non-woven bag machines entered. New round of competition has begun.
Unfortunately, almost all these new players trapped in price vicious competition. In order to reduce costs, the quality of non-woven fabrics is getting worse and the thickness get thinner and thinner. One year past, bad quality non-woven shopping bags flooded on the market now.
NEMA, or National Environment Management Authority of Kenya, released notice on 30th Nov.:
All users and suppliers of these Non-woven polypropylene bags should IMMEDIATELY STOP further use/supply of these bags through ALL Retail outlets until the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KeBs) gazettes a standard that will inform the quality of non-woven bags needed in the Kenyan market.
NEMA said they provide the non-woven bags as acceptable alternative option to plastic carrier bags, because non-woven bags is reusable and durable. And if will be very helpful for environment protect. However, the manufacturers of these bags produced plenty of poor quality bags which cannot to be used multiple times but are disposed off after single use. Finally these disposable bags will also result in bad influence to environment.
The standard which will be gazetted by KeBs may contain following aspects:
- The Gauge
- The Grammage
- Tensile strength
- Bursting strength
- etc.
