After a short hiatus in the UK, our Africa expat is back and ready to do her part to improve our Kenyan landscape
Each year, on home leave back to the UK, I experience a certain element of culture shock. Generally it is due to the speed with which new technologies filter down into everyday life.  One year I was bewildered by the mobile phone earpiece.

I assumed that shoppers talking to themselves with a wire hanging from their ear were all security guards working undercover!  The following year the phone earpieces were gone but in their place was the chip and pin payment system at the shops. Suddenly my cheque book was no longer accepted.  I once tried getting on a bus in London with the correct change in my pocket only to be told that without an Oystercard I was not allowed to board. 
While last year I was impressed by how UK city councils had taken householders to task on recycling rubbish, this year I was struck by the strides made in outlawing the low grade plastic bag. The approach is simple. When buying magazines or sweets in the newsagents, or shampoo in the pharmacy, absolutely no bags were forthcoming. When I asked the teller for a bag I was politely told, “I can give you one but I’ll have to charge you for it.”
Again and again, as I left shops juggling loose purchases in my arms, the inconvenience made me consider that paying extra for a bag, even just a few pence, had really driven the point home. Here in Kenya you normally have to beg not to be given a bag which means that sadly, when bags are so freely given, there is no particular incentive to remember to bring your own.
The scourge of the thin plastic bag littering roadways and bushes throughout the continent has earned it the name ‘Flower of Africa’.  Fluttering on fences, clogging storm drains and sprinkled on rubbish heaps, these bags poison scavenging animals and pollute the earth. Bags that are less than 30 microns in weight are the worst offenders because they are generally too thin to be reused. 
A 2005 study by the National Environmental Management Authority and the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis estimated that more than 100 million light polythene bags are handed out each year in Kenyan supermarkets, which is more than 4,000 tons of bags every month. In Kenya and Uganda in 2007 the production of thin plastic bags was prohibited and it was proposed that the thicker plastic bags be taxed. In spite of this, our habits have not changed and Kenyan manufacturers still churn out 48 million plastic bags per year.
I freely admit that I am a serial offender. While I do recycle plastic bags at home I always forget to bring my own bags or baskets to the shops. This is a tragedy since beautiful, locally produced baskets and bags are everywhere. To be charged each time you take a new plastic bag, thus feeling the pinch where it hurts (the wallet) would certainly work wonders in jogging our collective memories to reuse. It’s time for a wakeup call shoppers! Let’s get rid of these ugly ‘flowers’ and reclaim Kenya’s beautiful landscape.