16 Feb 2014

Government does not have plastic levy, according to the principal public relations officer in the Ministry of Environment Wildlife and Tourism, Ms Caroline Bogale-Jaiyeoba has said.

Ms Bogale-Jaiyeoba said this in response to a BOPA questionnaire. She stated that the misconception about plastic levy arose out of the fact that shops were selling plastic bags. She said the shops were selling plastic carrier bags as a commodity and the money collected went to the retailers.

The process to put in place the regulatory measures for plastic carrier bags had taken longer than initially anticipated due to levels of consultation involved, she said. However, she noted that Botswana had a compulsory standard in place for carrier bags, the BOS 186:2006 and any retailer could sell carrier bags as long as the bags met the compulsory standard.

Ms Bogale-Jaiyeoba said the standard required that all plastic carrier bags or flat bags must have a minimum of 24 microns in thickness and made it illegal to have a plastic carrier bag or flat bag of less than 24 microns in use. She said the Botswana Bureau of Standards was responsible for monitoring and enforcement of the BOS 186:2006 compulsory standard, to confirm whether traders and other establishments were complying with the law.

She further explained that there were different types of plastics with different uses in the economy, noting that plastic carrier bags or flat bags were those used to carry groceries and items of clothes and were regulated by the compulsory standard. The standard excluded plastic bags such as bread bag, plastic that covers meat, medicine bags and any other bags. Ends