{"id":201,"date":"2019-06-05T07:01:55","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T07:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/?p=201"},"modified":"2019-06-07T03:00:39","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T03:00:39","slug":"rwandas-plastic-bag-ban-cleans-up-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/2019\/06\/05\/rwandas-plastic-bag-ban-cleans-up-the-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwanda\u2019s Plastic Bag Ban Cleans up Country"},"content":{"rendered":"\n[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.23.3″ background_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0)” custom_margin=”||-100px”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.23.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.23.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.23.3″ text_font=”Oswald|||on|||||” text_text_align=”center” text_text_color=”#998002″ text_font_size=”61px” text_line_height=”1.1em” link_font=”||||||||” ul_font=”||||||||” custom_margin=”-20px||”]

Rwanda’s plastic bag ban cleans up country<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Picture1.png” _builder_version=”3.23.3″][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.23.3″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.23.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_5″ _builder_version=”3.23.3″][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”3.23.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.23.3″]

By Zhao Shuang and Gao Yue<\/strong><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.23.3″ text_font=”Roboto||||||||”]

On a cool May evening after a rain shower in hilly north Rwanda, the streets sparkled, not a single piece of litter in sight.<\/p>\n

Rwanda, a country of almost 13 million in Central Africa, \u00a0is often called the cleanest country on the continent. One reason? Plastic bags are illegal.<\/p>\n

Manufacturing, using, importing and selling polythene bags have been banned here since 2008.<\/p>\n

Around the world, 65 countries have banned plastic bags to varying degrees.<\/p>\n

Rwanda was not the first in Africa, but, along with Kenya, it is considered one of the strongest enforcers.<\/p>\n

Anyone caught with a plastic bag can be fined up to 500,000 Rwandan francs (HK$4,312) or imprisoned for up to a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took time for people to believe it will happen,\u201d tour guide Mugugu Mungarulire, 49, said. \u201cRwanda mainly imported plastic bags from Uganda. People started smuggling in bags and then bringing them to shop. We just come to the shop, check, seize them, and take them to jail. And nobody smuggles anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

People now use baskets to carry goods and paper bags to wrap commodities.<\/p>\n

There are some exceptions, such as in the hotel industry. \u201cThe only problem is the kitchen and the bar, where we have wet trash instead of dry waste. That\u2019s the only place we use plastic bags,\u201d food and beverage manager of the Epic Hotel and Suites, Sandeep Moorjani said.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s next move will be to ban single use plastics, such as water bottles. According to the Rwandan newspaper the New Times, the draft law was approved by the government in January and waits parliament approval.<\/p>\n

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By Zhao Shuang and Gao Yue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-articles-1","category-slider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions\/208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}