Kenya has passed the strictest plastic bag ban in the world, punishing anyone who sells or uses plastic bags with four years in prison or a $40,000 fine. Proponents of the law say that marine animals often end up strangled by or ingesting plastic.
“If we continue like this, by 2050, we will have more plastic in the ocean than fish,” said Habib El-Habr, an expert on ocean trash working with Kenya’s UN environment program.
But the bags also hurt livestock on farms. “In Nairobi’s slaughterhouses, some cows destined for human consumption had 20 bags removed from their stomachs,” reports Reuters. The bags can take 500 to 1,000 years to break down, according to El-Habr.
Critics of the law fear it will hurt business. “Samuel Matonda, spokesman for the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, said it would cost 60,000 jobs and force 176 manufacturers to close … ‘It will even affect the women who sell vegetables in the market — how will their customers carry their shopping home?’”