For 32 years, Leonard Mbogo wore a police uniform with high dignity as he discharged his duties and dedicated his service to his mother country, which he swore to protect.
Mbogo, now 71 years old, served in many stations across the country, from the North Rift region in the Eastern Province to the Central Province, where in all of them, the plastic waste pollution stood out.
When he eventually hung up his boots in 2007 at Kongoni police station in Naivasha, Mbogo said a noble idea of venturing into the plastic waste management business was birthed.
In 2011, Mbogo registered Wiper Sanitary Disposer Company, withdrew part of his savings, and immersed himself fully in the clog of turning plastic waste into usable valuables.
For over a decade now, his company, which has been contracted by the Nakuru County Government to undertake waste management, has collected thousands of tons of plastic waste, a win for the environment.
Through his well-thought-out initiative, Mbogo has invested in four garbage collection trucks and a sorting and crashing machine and created employment for over 30 youthful workers.
Mbogo said his company is licensed by the County to collect garbage from town households in Zone 4 areas of the Industrial Area, Hopewell, and Central Landing Beach, besides area flower farms.
It is from this collected garbage that his employees sort it out into various wastes, including plastics, cartons, soft drinks, and beer bottle cans, along with food waste.
His main interest is plastic waste, which is sorted according to its distinct colors, crushed into small pellets, and aggregated to ease their transportation to his business associates.
Although Mbogo earns a living from the plastic management business, he is limited in financial resources to venture into the full cycle of the recycling process and often relies on Nairobi Light Industries to buy off his sorted plastic loads.
“The government should support my initiative and help me finance a recycling machine to convert the waste into valuables and create extra job opportunities for deserving youths”, Said Mbogo.
During World Environment Day, which was marked in Nakuru City, Mbogo joined the Naivasha team for a tree planting exercise, where he also voiced his concerns over the increased reckless littering of plastics by locals.
Mbogo has now become a champion of a plastic-free environment and often picks up plastics from the streets during his daily tours around the lakeside town or elsewhere.
Mbogo, born in Muranga County in a family of eight but raised in Sabatia in Baringo County, says he is not dropping the ball yet until the war on plastic’s menace in the environment is won.
The ex-uniform officer rallied locals and Kenyans to join the battalion for a plastic-free environment and called on relevant government agencies to strictly enforce plastic waste management laws to achieve these goals.
He said uncollected plastic waste has often found its way into the town drainage systems, causing blockages during the rainy season as well as snaking its way through to Lake Naivasha, posing a health and environmental risk to its marine life.
According to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development data, plastics constitute an estimated 12 percent of solid waste in Kenya, amounting to 966,000 tons every year.
The data shows that plastic beverage bottles accounted for the largest share at 13 percent of all items collected from beaches in 2019, followed by plastic bottle caps at 11 percent.
In addition, a United Nations study shows that 400 million tons of plastic waste are produced annually worldwide, out of which only 10 percent is recycled, with the figure estimated to double by 2040 if no action is taken.
“Plastic pollution could be reduced by eight percent [8%] by 2040 if countries and companies make deep policy and market shifts using existing technology,” the United Nations Environment Programme [UNEP] says.
It is from these growing concerns that, in 2017, Kenya led its African peers after it placed a ban on single-use plastic bags, which saw a huge percentage reduction of plastic waste in the environment.
In 2020, the government prohibited visitors to national parks, beaches, forests, and other conservation areas from entering with plastic bottles, cups, disposable plates, cutlery, or straws as a mitigation measure.
However, Soipan Tuya, the Cabinet Secretary [CS] for Environment, Forestry, and Climate Change, raised concerns over clipping back and the use of single-use plastics in local markets.
The CS, who was addressing delegates and environmentalists during World Environment Day in Nakuru, tasked the National Environment Management Authority [NEMA] and County Environment Committees to sustain the war on plastic bag use.
The 2017 ban places a fine of up to Sh 2 million or a jail term of one to two years if one is found in possession, manufacturing, importing, or distributing single-use plastic bags.
Tuya, however, said there was a need for more public awareness and education on the ban on plastic bags and on the best practices out there to address and tackle plastic pollution in the country.
Speaking during the event, Nakuru County Governor Susan Kihika said the city generates about 700 tons of solid waste annually.
Through the budget estimates to the National Assembly by Treasury CS Prof Njuguna Ndungu, the government has allocated Sh 150 million to the Environment Ministry for plastic waste management and pollution control in the 2023–24 financial year.
The government has also been receiving non-state actors and international donor support to initiate programmes geared toward plastic eradication and management.
According to the Draft National Green Fiscal Incentives Policy Framework [2022] prepared by the National Treasury, the government proposes several fiscal actions to win the war on plastics in the country.
Key among these are the development of Material Recovery facilities, where the government will give incentives for waste recovery facilities and encourage the private sector through tax incentives, access to finance, and removing investment barriers to waste management.
The policy also seeks to encourage a circular economy in the plastic waste management business model that promotes recycling, offers preferences for the use of recovered materials over virgin ones, and supports innovative waste-to-energy technologies.
The policy framework also seeks to invoke the ‘Polluter Pays Principle’ for pollution prevention.
By Erastus Gichohi
