KAMPALA – The National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) is calling for a system through which manufacturers should be compelled to collect from the market the plastics they generate after consumer usage.
Tom Okurut Executive Director NEMA told lawmakers on the Natural Resources Committee that the Authority is set to hold a meeting with manufacturers aiming at both sides of forging a harmonized position on the mechanism for collecting plastics to ensure they don’t end up in lakes or hire a third party that will be responsible for them.
The meeting between NEMA officials and Parliament followed a petition by manufacturers that government planned to ban recycling plants in the country with manufacturers arguing that since Parliament passed the National Environmental Act, they have been trying to invest in these recycling plants as the law requires but now they do not know whether they should continue or not.
“We want the manufacturers to put in place a system to collect the plastics or in other countries employ a third party who would be collecting the plastics people return and ensure that these plastics are collected back without them going back to the recycles of dumping and going to the water,” said Okurut.
Okurut also says that as the authority they have never implemented cabinet decision of cancelling all land titles in wetlands because up to now they have never received money 2.1 billion shillings from the ministry of finance so that they can kick start the process.
