Government hosts stakeholders to discuss EPR in fight against pollution

By Robert Mutasi 

In a bid to address pollution in the nation's urban waterways, Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change, and Forestry Aden Duale took to his verified social media accounts on Monday, October 7, 2024, to announce a high-profile meeting.

This stakeholders' meeting was conducted in association with key organizations: Kenya Association of Manufacturers, Kenya Resident, PAKPRO Kenya, KEPRO Kenya, and Nairobi Water. 

The meeting resolved to adopt EPR as the panacea needed to stop the ongoing pollution of the Nairobi River ecosystem.

This was one among a greater endeavor, the Climate WorX Mtaani, to rehabilitate the 47km-long Nairobi River, which has been the recipient of massive industrial waste and sewage pollution.

The recently launched initiative by the Ministry gathers a variety of partners in the implementation of sustainable measures to clean and revive the river, which has been a long-serving resource to the people of Nairobi but today has become seriously polluted.

One of the key issues discussed during the meeting was the implementation of the EPR regulations that would make industries responsible for pollution caused by their products. 

The Ministry of Environment, in conjunction with NEMA, will soon gazette such regulations.

This move comes as a critical step toward ensuring that manufacturers, along with other polluters, are responsible for the whole life cycle of their products, right from production to disposal.

"NEMA has already identified industries as key contributors to pollution in urban rivers," Duale said. "Together with sewerage and waste companies, these industries are some of the biggest culprits, and we are taking concrete steps to hold them accountable."

The Ministry has already demonstrated its resolve to implement these laws.

NEMA has directed 145 industries that were identified as key contributors of pollution to Nairobi River to rehabilitate it.

These have been given timelines for compliance, failure of which strict legal actions would be taken against them in the form of fines and/or shutdowns for non-compliance.

The EPR Regulations are part of an extended effort by the government of Kenya to act against environmental degradation and ensure that private sectors work sustainably.

Through the regulations, industries will be forced to devise means of managing wastes emanating from their products to ensure there is greater recycling, reusing, and decent disposal of the same.