This country of ours is choking in murk and grime, in what as appears as our new found pastime, of littering and polluting our environment with so much abandon, and without anybody caring so much as to who is going to clean after them. It's a real wide wild jungle out here with weak laws and corrupt and lazy government officials who are not bothered in enforcing the law, if only to protect their own children. Even corporations who own large factories have now joined in the craze by letting their toxic waste join the sewerage system without pre-cleaning and their chimneys spewing out all sorts of noxious concoctions without caring how that affects the people and the environment. All this is happening in Nairobi which is the seat of UNEP/Habitat - shame!
I do know, however, that there has been concern in some quarters and legislation has been introduced in parliament to control the manufacture of low gauge polythene (that's difficult to recycle) bags but legislation alone without policing, enforcement and punitive measures against offenders is nothing much to talk about. I think, instead of endless talk without much action, it's better to build a few "Titanics" and ship everybody in this country for a weekend junket to either Japan or any of the Scandinavian countries so that we can learn a thing or two about litter management and its safe disposal!
Wherever I travel on any of our roads, I thoroughly get amused (and at times annoyed) by the way we throw litter from our car windows without so much caring as to where it lands or who will ever clean it. Come on Kenyans, I think, we can be more ingenious and resourceful than that by wrapping that which we want to discard and waiting till the end of our journey so as to dispose it off conveniently and safely. This of course includes peels from those nice bananas that we buy at Ntharene on our way to from Meru to Nairobi!
Kenyans, particularly small scale business people are well known for their enterprise and this is now evident in all our urban areas, where you find hawkers pushing wheelbarrows laden with fresh fruit which they sell in small portions in transparent polythene wrappers, which I think is quite hygienic, because even mechanics with their greasy hands can buy and enjoy their choice fruit without worrying so much as to what they are ingesting. The only beef we have with these hawkers and their customers is that they throw away whatever leftover and the wrapper carelessly even in the open flood water drains. Surely, if one is happy to carry the vitamins they have ingested from the fruit in their bodies, they should also feel obliged to burn a bit of calories by carrying the little litter to a safer place for disposal!
High rise building apartment blocks are the solution to urban housing problems. Whereas this is also catching up and welcome in our urban areas, we seem however, to have thrown our building ethics to the dogs as what we find are haphazardly built blocks without good sewerage and drainage facilities and litter disposal provisions. I think the government and the municipalities have to come out clearly and forcefully to ensure housing plans are followed so that there is no litter swirling around those blocks and the owners and managers severely punished for any breach of such by-laws.
Our Industrial Area in Nairobi is a nightmare for human-life. When one is not traveling on the dilapidated roads full of potholes they are likely to be assaulted by obnoxious gases emitted from the factories. Large factories that produce all sorts of pollutants like heavy metals and emissions from chemical reactions and combustion processes are releasing them without adequate mitigation to reduce their impact to the environment. We have had reports where water systems lying close to sewerage systems have been contaminated. So, it wouldn't be much exaggeration to imagine what corrosive chemicals have done to the sewerage systems and the seeping effect into the drinking water systems. Until we get a responsible government and council free of corruption that is the only time you can be sure that your glass of drinking water doesn't contain enough pollutants to change you to a Frankenstein before you celebrate your next birthday. Responsible governments and municipalities offer their citizens alternative drinking water if there is reason to believe what is in the taps is not potable.
As a country, we are in dire need of a regulatory, policing and enforcing authority to put things in order before we poison our selves and other living things to extinction. However, we know that it's one thing to talk about good legislation and it's operation in such a corrupt environment like ours. To ensure that this works well to our benefit, I think it's important for the government to come up with a special budget allocation for the responsible department for mass education so that citizens are aware of their duties and responsibilities and those caught flouting the laws thereafter are severely punished without any mercy. In line with this, we should come up with an environmental police department complete with an Inspector General to enforce any piece of legislation that is passed on environmental pollution and littering.
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