Nairobi Implements a Successful Public Ban on Smoking

By Howard Lesser, Washington, DC
20 July 2007
Nairobi has become the third city in Kenya to implement a ban on smoking that has tobacco companies running for cover.   The proscription went into effect last week in all public venues of the capital, and from all indications, restaurants, taverns, and tourist sites are observing the statute with minimum rancor.  Earlier bans were imposed on the Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa and the rift valley town of Nakuru.  Nairobi fines are high by Kenyan standards, about 300 dollars, 20-thousand Kenyan shillings, or six months in prison, as mandated by Nairobi’s local governing City Council.  From the Kenyan Embassy in Washington, First Councilor for Economic and Political Affairs James Wakiaga says local officials imposed the stiff fines to let the public know they mean serious business.

“I think they’ll have an effect because the people who are being fined are being fined to the tune of 20-thousand (Kenya shillings), which is really not little money by Kenyan standards.  I think this will have an effect in terms of carrying off people who are going to disobey the new bylaw,” he notes.

The ban is helping residents of capital meet health and environmental standards as it stops locals from lighting up.  Councilor Wakiaga says Nairobi motivations stem more from a desire to keep up with international standards rather than to follow the lead of its sister cities.

“This is part of the global trend, really, in trying to create smoke-free zones.  In Kenya, I know it started years back with the offices.  Most of the offices in Kenya have no-smoking zones,” he said.

Wakiaga also says that public support for the ban stems from a growing awareness about the dangers for non-smokers to contract lung cancer and other serious afflictions from being exposed second-hand to the cigarette smoke of others.

“Actually, there is a great awareness that’s clear, when it comes to the health matters and the effects of smoking, and basically, especially for the secondary people, those who don’t smoke directly but get affected by people who are smoking.  But I guess the next level is that we should see if we can try and create, maybe, smoke zones, so that those who want to smoke there have particular areas where they can go and smoke,” he suggests.

Wakiaga indicates that a majority of Kenyans support the ban.  “So far there really isn’t any major form of opposition,” he says.  “You know, we really don’t have a big number of people who are smokers.  The culture of smoking is not as prevalent in Kenya as in many other countries.”

Other new laws being put into effect this year by local officials in Nairobi include a ban on prostitution and a statute outlawing the solicitation of goods from street hawkers.  James Wakiaga suggests that in conjunction with the capital’s new smoking ban, there is a serious effort to implement standards to improve the way things work.

“I think what you are looking at really is trying to have a more organized way of doing business.  And hawkers, they do their work at designated places.  Nairobi is a well-known capital city with very large numbers of international organizations, including the UN office (the UN Environment Program and the Habitat), which is the only UN office outside a developed country.   Given the importance of Nairobi as a city, it’s important for us to maintain its high standards for it to be able to retain its status and also to be able to attract investors who want to put their money in Kenya,” he said.
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Nairobi's Plastic Bags are Barking
April 11, 2007

Sometime symptoms are confused with the disease that causes them. Litter is one such symptom often confused with an economic disease.

Consider the scattered plastic bags around Nairobi, that, according to the New York Times, are a curse caused because they are many microns too thin. Kenyan government officials, along with the UN, have proposed legislative cures. As usual, political force is proposed to solve the plastic problem.

The problem is described here:

"... All over Nairobi, and all over Africa, are ugly artificial blooms that mar the landscape and that environmentalists want plucked up and removed...These flowers are cheap, thin plastic bags that are tossed to the ground by consumers. This kind of litter has reached a critical mass in Kenya - clogging streams, choking animals and piling up into little mountains of disease."

That was April, 2005. Nairobi citizens and animals have apparently survived this "critical mass" of garbage into 2007.

Africans, apparently conscious to conserve scarce plastic resources, used less:

"These bags are different from the ones that Westerners carry their groceries in from the neighborhood supermarket; the Kenyan bags are so thin they barely hold a few mangoes or a few pounds of corn meal without tearing."

(Africans are apparently light shoppers, rarely buying anything heavier than a few mangos, according to the New York Times).

And these plastic bags, not Western-backed DDT restrictions, turn out to be a cause of malaria. Again quoting the New York Times:

"Wangari Maathai, the assistant environmental minister in Kenya and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, says the sacks provide a breeding place for malarial mosquitoes, helping spread one of the continent's major killers."

Dr. Maathai suggests African shoppers instead use "sisal or cotton, or the traditional baskets, which were what people used before plastic came along."

Now, through targeted legislation, Kenya could rid itself of unsightly plastic bag pollution, which are "clogging streams, choking animals," and nurturing malarial mosquitoes, and create thousands of jobs in traditional basket-making. Perhaps new industries could be nurtured, too. The pesky T-shirts dumped by Americans on Africa could have sleeves and collars sewn shut to make new long-lasting cotton shopping bags.

The National Environmental Management Authority and the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis authored a plastic bag study, sponsored by the United Nations Environment Program, claiming over 100 million are used by Kenyan shoppers each year. Since each can hold "barely a few mangos," according to the New York Times, many must accompany shoppers home (Though apparently shoppers toss the bags aside as litter before reaching home, and carry their few mangos inside by hand (perhaps the study provides details).

The study called for banning the thin plastic bags, and suggested other types of bags to "be taxed to provide a financial incentive for bag manufacturers to come up with more environmentally friendly alternatives." The study helpfully suggested "The tax could then go to support recycling efforts."

Job losses would follow a ban on plastic bags, according to the study, as Kenya has "a booming industry here that supplies all of East Africa." But the study suggests all is not lost as "other jobs would probably be created among cotton bag manufacturers." And "Nairobi's street children and others might also earn some income from picking up plastics if a recycling program was started. ..."

Grocery bags are handy. Kenyan bags, thinner according to the article than similar bags in the U.S., are the problem. Grocery stores could switch to more expensive thicker plastic bags, but of course would have to pass the higher cost on to customers by raising prices. Paper bags could be used if nearby pulp and paper supplies are adequate. Is thicker plastic or paper what customers would prefer? If the thin bags break too much (as the article states) why don't customers purchase their own thicker plastic bags and bring them when they shop (especially if they plan to purchase more than a few mangos)? Surely they would notice if their grocery bags regularly break on the way home. Africans are poor, but too poor to afford a few extra microns for their plastic bags?

Of course I am not an expert on either plastic bag technology nor litter in Nairobi. I live in Seattle, Washington, USA. We have thicker plastic grocery bags. And some grocery stores (such as Trader Joe's, where I shop) offer only much thicker and bulkier (and less strong) paper bags.

Still, though, we have a problem with litter (and have mosquitos in the summer, if not malaria). You can see plastic bags and other trash accumulating on undeveloped properties where owners are absent, or where property is owned by city, county, or national government agencies.

Economist Hernando de Soto notes in his book "The Mystery of Capital" that in developing countries barking dogs signal often informal property boundaries Local governments often do a poor job of registering who owns what, but informal systems (like barking dogs) can arise to guide everyday commercial activity

I wonder if the litter of plastic bags in Nairobi is the barking dog signaling where government, for some reason, hangs on to property it can't adequately manage. Are these thin plastic bags "clogging streams" and "choking animals" everywhere or randomly throughout Nairobi? Or are the problems they cause more likely to be on government owned property?

The Kenyan government and the U.N. are ready to tax grocery bags and hire people to pick up littered plastic bags. What if, instead, people are hired to assign ownership to littered land? Or maybe the tasks could be combined. Kenyans could mix their labor with the land by clearing it of litter and keeping it clear for a year. After a year they would earn clear title and could use the land as they please. Or could sell it off and move on to clear another parcel.
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