Africa Nations Move to Ban Plastic Bags

With garbage rotting in the streets and being burnt in toxic bonfires, many African countries are looking to ban plastic bags. Kenya produces 48 million every year, and is now trying to follow Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda by outlawing them. In Nairobi’s slums, bags even clog channels leading out of toilets, creating a “stomach churning mass,” the Christian Science Monitor reports.

As dire as the situation is in Kenya, it’s relatively new: Most shopping was done with baskets only 15 years ago. The Monitor also travels to Nigeria, where a ban is decidedly not on its way: There’s little clean drinking water native to the country, and the imported water is packaged in plastic bags. (More plastic bags stories.)