Taka Thursday: 18th May, 2023
Through our TakaThursday social media campaigns we held a discussion with Georgina Wacuka who is the Regulatory and Compliance Executive at Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM). During this interaction, the discussion was centered around compliance in waste management and circular economy. Introducing herself, Georgina Wacuka highlighted the key mandate of KAM as advocacy through engagement with government and like-minded stakeholders to discuss matters that provide good business environment and support members in creating an understanding of policy space in the context of laws and regulations. Compliance can be defined as the state of been in accordance with established guidelines or specifications, or the process of becoming so.
KAM has spearheaded and developed a working relationship with the national government to ensure that laws and policies are enacted to govern waste management. Expounding on this, Georgina highlighted the Environmental Management and Coordination Act ,1999 as the mother law that led to establishment of the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA). This act is under review to ensure its alignment to the current principle of circularity, green growth, and sustainability. She further acknowledged that the national government has demonstrated political goodwill and particularly the Ministry of Environment that drives environmental matters by remaining at the top of its Job to ensure we conserve the environment.
The recently enacted act “ Sustainable Waste Management Act, 2022” which offer a solution to waste pollution by promoting Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) was not left out during this discourse. It was eminent that this act would be the game changer once implemented as it narrows down to sustainable waste management and will phase out consumption patterns and production that follows a linear approach of waste management and pave way for a circular approach which converts waste into new value. Georgina further dissected the EPR parallel by explaining that She explained that it was designed to address five basic categories of waste which are: hazardous and non – hazardous, e – waste, end of life vehicles, building and construction material. The set – up of ERP will see the creation of green jobs, livelihoods, and business.
The Sustainable Waste Management Act, 2022 spells out the roles of all involved parties including the manufacturers, consumers, national and sub -national government as municipal waste management is a devolved function. Production and consumption patterns characterized by irresponsible waste disposal has resulted to increased environmental pressure and related health complications as a result of failing environmental systems such as air, water, and soil.
Industries should not be seen as businesses with profit maximization as the only driving motive. Beyond making profits, industries must put into consideration other factors that manages resources. This can be done through having a good, competitive, and sustainable environment. For organizations to thrive and stay in the competition space and aligned to global practices, they should purpose and inclusively put investments in processes such as Environmental Social Governance (ESG) that are environmentally sound and playing out in terms of the market for the products manufactured. The speaker also urged everyone to take part in sustainable waste management whether through reusing, repurposing, recycling, reducing, using resource efficiency production process, and products design.
TTNM seeks to advocate for behavioral change at personal levels towards achieving compliance in waste management and circularity. Showing how KAM is driving compliance and changing the waste management landscape, Georgina highlighted that most organizations have changed their production processes to produce goods that are compatible with recycling process by structuring Products such as colored water bottles to colorless and fixing of brand wraps loosely for ease of removal. TTNM sees this as a cardinal area of collaboration by partnering with manufactures and organizations to promote policy and practices that enhance sustainable waste management and circularity.
As much as Compliance offers best results towards achieving environmental targets, it poses a challenge of cost. The Regulatory and Compliance Executive at KAM, Georgina Wacuke sees a way out to solving this problem by harmonizing and reconciling compliance licenses. Additionally, under the spirit of goodwill Georgina stated that KAM is looking to negotiate with the government for organizations to self – regulate and cut the cost of compliance by reducing fees, taxes, and contentions. Kenya is moving and with speed towards the right trajectory to promote this conversation around incentives.This may call for interventions such as tax waiver on recycling machinery or the products of the material and reviewing the existing law to ensure they align with the current technology and innovations.
The common goal of environmental conservation cannot be achieved in isolation. TTNM and KAM sees collaboration as fruitful approach and the Africa- Waste is Wealth Series an important forum to share, interact, exchange ideas, and discuss on the sufficiency of existing compliance policy and laws.