A ban on importing plastic packaging bags as well as used computers and refrigerators to protect the environment hangs in the balance after two cabinet ministers clashed in Parliament yesterday. Information Communication and Technology minister Aggrey Awori told the parliamentary committee on Finance that the environmental impact of the bags, commonly known as ‘buveera’, and the used electronics, far outweighed the economic cost of banning them.

The world and Uganda in particular, has faced the challenge of adjusting to the continuously climatic changes. The traditional climatic seasons have not only been distorted but have also come with drought and hunger as it is the case in Teso today. However, environmentalists and scientists believe that this is just a tip of the iceberg of what is yet to come as a result of the people’s interference with the environment.

Recycling is the answer to all those plastics littered over the streets. This approach has worked in many developed countries which do not restrict the use of plastics. On average, a person in a developed country generates more than a hundred fold the plastic waste an average Ugandan does.

Lake Victoria water appears beautiful and full of life from a distance but when you come closer, the water begins to appear dirty.
Indeed, the water is massively polluted by industrial effluent and filth from garages. Some of the fuel trucks, trailers, buses, taxis and hearses are repaired in garages or washed at washing bays. When these vehicles have systems that leak oils, the leakages drip slowly and end up into Lake Victoria thereby polluting the water.

The Uganda Manufacturers’ Association [UMA] has asked the government to lift the recent total ban on polythene bags [Kaveera] production citing big capital investment loss, unemployment and revenue loss to the national treasury.

THEY are like chameleons. Two decades ago, the pro-polythene bag lobby said manufacturers had invested a lot of money in the plastic making industries, offering employment to thousands of people, while paying huge taxes to Government coffers.

A total ban on polythene products without even mentioning alternatives is irrational and irresponsible. Polyethene and plastics in general are cheap, convenient and have revolutionalised many aspects of our daily lives. It is very difficult to imagine the economic and social costs of not being able to use them—in restaurants, electronics, hospitals, travel, name it. When I hear people talking of paper bags, I wonder whether they ever consider what is used as the raw material for them.

IT was a sigh of relief for Moses Kasibante, a resident of Nakawa, when Syda Bbumba, the finance minister, declared that the Government was imposing a total ban on buveera. For Kasibante and his colleagues, the decision is what is needed to end the menace caused by buveera that has plagued the environment for years. But their excitement could be short-lived.

Today, Uganda joins the rest of the world to mark World Environment Day, with the national commemoration taking place in Kayunga District.The day, observed every June 5, was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972, marking the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.

An increase in malaria carrying mosquitoes and deer ticks that spread lime disease are living signs that climate change is likely to exact a heavy toll on human health. These pests and others are expanding their ranges in a warming world, which means people who never had to worry about them will have to start. And these are hardly the only health threats from global warming.