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"id": 196444,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/196444/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Prof. Olweny",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Education",
"speaker": {
"id": 122,
"legal_name": "Patrick Ayiecho Olweny",
"slug": "patrick-olweny"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to support this Motion. It is a very important Motion in this century for this country. Plastics are some products of science which are very useful to us. However, on the other hand, they are very dangerous. If not properly disposed of, they can cause serious problems for us just like glasses and metals. That is another dangerous product which if not properly disposed of, is another problem for the environment. All these are products of science which we are taking advantage of. Unfortunately, in this country, we are not disposing of them in the right way. In the Western countries, there is no problem of glass, plastic, paper or metal littering. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, first and foremost, we should have a law regulating littering in April 16, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 475 this country. In any country, littering is terrible thing. You will go in for it! You will pay a heavy fine for it. Unfortunately, in this country, even in front of Parliament Buildings, you find people throwing things around. How long will it take us - the lawmakers - to put something in place to control littering? I remember some time back, when I had just come from the United States of America (USA), where I did my studies, I was given a house by the University of Nairobi. Every morning I would go around my flat, making sure that the surrounding was clean. My neighbours felt that I was weird. They wondered why I moved around the building, removing pieces of paper. That means Kenyans are used to dirty environment. We have to do something about it. The kind of damage that plastics do to the country is immense. When it is dumped in the soil, it reduces water infiltration. It blocks the drainage system. In some places, we have floods because of materials which float on the water ways. It blocks rivers or springs and then we have floods. Plastics even block the sewerage system. That is why we have waste water coming out of sewerage pipes. This problem would have been put under control if we had passed an appropriate law, controlling the use, disposal and recycling of some of these materials, be they plastics, metals or glass. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we all know that plastics are causing death to livestock in this country. In fact, one day, I lost a lamb. I thought it was sick. I invited a veterinary doctor, but he could not handle the situation. When it died, those who opened up the animal, they found a bunch of plastics in its stomach. I do not know how that animal ended up swallowing the plastics. After all, they do not eat plastics. Plastics are not digestible. Its alimentary canal got blocked. I hope you have heard of \"flying toilets\". They are found in certain estates where wananchi use plastics as toilets, particularly at night. Since they cannot keep the stuff inside the house with them, they have to throw it outside at night. If by bad luck you happen to be passing around such a place, and a \"flying toilet\" lands on you, then you will have a problem on your face. We need to control some of these things. Children like playing around with plastics. Can you imagine children getting hold of plastic bags that were used as \"flying toilets\", which always end up in their mounts or noses? Such children gets into a serious problem. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is high time we came up with bio-degradable plastics. Plastics are used all over the world, but they are bio-degradable. If you happen to be careless and fail to dispose of it well, it will be degraded just like paper. However, the plastics which are manufactured and imported into this country are not bio-degradable. I wonder why while the rest of the world is using bio-degradable plastics, we are using none bio-degradable plastics. It is high time we took to the use of bio-degradable plastics. If manufacturers of plastics insist that it is expensive to manufacture bio-degradable plastics, then we should go back to the use of paper. We could illegalise the use of plastics if investors cannot manufacture bio-degradable plastics and resort to using paper bags which we used to use in this country. People say that the kind of plastics we use in this country cannot be recycled. Why should investors in this area not manufacture plastics which can be recycled? I know that Kenyans recycle the water bottles on the Table. There are reports that the material that has been used for making the bottles causes cancer, if it is recycled. I know that many people do not know that. I have read a report which says that if those bottles are used over and over again, they end up causing cancer. We even need to take care of the bottles themselves. Although it is a little late, let us fast-track this Motion. Let the Mover bring the Bill as soon as possible, so that we can pass it and put in place an effective law to control the use of plastics in this country. I hope the Bill will provide for controls on the use and recycling of glass materials as well. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}