Currents Summer 2024 (1) - Flipbook - Page 49
The Importance of
RWANDA’S PATH TO
ZERO PLASTIC
How?
This section will introduce sustainable practices like efficient and responsible resource use as
part of the solution to these challenges.
COntrol
Law
Penalities
Custom inspections at the borders
and airports to prevent the
smuggling of banned plastic bags
into the country.
Implementation of a nationwide
ban on plastic bags in 2008.
Application of strict penalties for
those found violating the plastic
ban.
Umuganda
Incentives
Local entrepreneurs were
supported and incentivized to
develop eco-friendly
alternatives to single-use
plastics
Mandatory community work programme for
every Rwandan above the age of 18. Initiated
in order to bring Rwandan citizens from the
same community, regardless of ethnicity,
together every last Saturday of the month to
work as a group on an assigned duty. These
duties are social work as well as environmental
tasks, such as collecting waste and plastic
bags lying around the streets, planting trees
or rebuilding a community members’ house, if,
for instance it has been destroyed by heavy
rain or wind.
EDUCATION
Public awareness campaigns to
educate the population about
the environmental impact of
plastic bags and benefits of the
bans.
AIRPORT PROHIBITED ITEMS INCLUDE : KNIVES, GUNS, RAZORS AND PLASTIC
BAGS.
In the next issue:
How a nation went from civil war to being
internationally recognized for its
environmental protection methods.
