Kenyans shopping for affordable quality clothes by the EPZ. [Photo/the-star.co.ke]The plastic bag ban is crippling sales for the export processing zone factories and manufacturers are now calling for the plastic bag ban to be lifted in their favour.
The Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) has written to the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) arguing that the ban should be exempted to EPZ firms since the destination countries have their own environmental management policies.KAM sector manager Samuel Matondan said, “EPZ firms have made complaints that their exports (garments) are affected by the plastic bag ban because the packaging is regarded as secondary packaging”.“The plastic bag packaging for a shirt, for example, the see-through paper that enables you to see what you are buying is banned, so exports have stalled” Samuel further said.The EPZ firms say this is resulting in loss of export revenue and foreign exchange income across many industries.Some 62 zones are privately-owned while three are publicly owned.The petition by KAM to Nema on the EPZ products is among a host of other requests for exemptions made by the manufacturers to Nema.