ANSAmed
The Moroccan parliament has unanimously voted to outlaw plastic sacks beginning in July 2016. The law prohibits the production, importation, sale and use of plastic shopping sacks. Transgressors will have to pay heavy fines, totaling as much as 100,000 euros for producers. The promoter of the law, Trade Minister Mohammed Abdou, called it a ”collective realization” of the damage wrought by plastic sacks. Every Moroccan uses 900 per year.
Disposing of them causes extremely bad effects on the environment and human health, and waste management is virtually non-existent in Morocco. Abandoned sacks end up in open-air rubbish dumps, and they are caught up in branches and thrown about fields by the slightest wind. They are known as the ‘flowers of the Sahel’, but the consequences of the ‘flowers’ include a high percentage of animals that die suffocated by them, lessened fertility of fields and drainage pipes blockages.
The new law introduces a number of regulations for producers and distributors of thermal sacks, black rubbish sacks and industrial and agricultural plastic packaging. The regulations will come into force in 2016. Meanwhile, the government will promote initiatives to raise awareness on alternatives and to help plastic sack producers shift to other types of activities. The market for biodegradable sacks – which entered Morocco through French distributors in 2010 – has thus become rosier.
(ANSAmed).
