How Kenya Plans to Penalise Big Corporations Over Pollution

In a bid to cap environmental pollution, including that which has corroded the Nairobi River, Environment Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has revealed that the government will be going after big companies.

Under the Environmental Management and Coordination Act and the Sustainable Waste Management Act, CS Duale presented seven regulations to the Senate Committee on Delegate legislation aimed at curbing the plastic waste menace in the country.

Among the seven regulations is the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which aims to focus on industry players both local and international with a bid to force the companies to either pay for the clean-up or do the clean-up themselves if they are found to be polluting the environment.

According to this regulation, manufacturers will have a big part to play in the conservation of the Environment.

“If we find a package, for example, from a milk-producing company or bottles from a particular beverage-producing company, in that river as a waste, we will not go and deal with the Kenyan who brought that waste. We will look for the producer,” Duale informed.

According to the CS, the brand owner will be forced by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) to go and clean that section that has been polluted.

“This extended producer responsibility happens everywhere in the world. It is not new, and it is the law,” Duale continued.

The sentiments Duale made on Friday are an affirmation of a plot he revealed a few weeks ago while he appeared in Parliament to answer questions on the State of Nairobi River.

In response, the CS revealed that the NEMA did an assessment and found that at least 145 apartments and manufacturers along the river waterway were the main culprits.

EPR was amplified by the Kenya Plastic Action Plan launched in December 2019 by the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, where producers within the plastics sector committed to take responsibility for their products.

It is a policy approach based on the ‘Polluter-Pays Principle’, whereby producers are given significant responsibility financial, organizational, and/or physical for the design, collection, treatment, and disposal of the waste from the products they introduce in the market.

Section 13(1) of the Sustainable Waste Management Act states that every producer shall bear extended producer responsibility to reduce pollution and environmental impacts of the products they introduce into the Kenyan market and waste arising therefrom. 

Duale has also warned factories that are producing waste into the Nairobi River, revealing that they would be closed if they don’t comply with the Ministry’s environmental regulations.