Morocco officially banned plastic bags
Morocco is the second-largest plastic bag consumer after the United States. It uses about 3 billion plastic bags a year.
As a ban on the production and use of plastic bags comes into effect across Morocco on Friday, green campaigners say that the country's consumers may need years to fully comply with the new law.
For weeks now, awareness campaigns throughout the country have been warning Moroccans against the use of bags, which take hundreds of years to degrade. Their message is simple: plastic bags are unhealthy and dangerous for the ecosystem in a country that struggles to clean its streets and where fields of rubbish plague the local environment.
“If citizens are not aware of the concerns and the challenges we’re facing, things will go much slower. Everything begins and ends with the citizens.”
(Mamoun Ghallab, sustainable development consultant)
[Read the full article by Aida Alami - via Al Jazeera- Photo by Andrew - Flickr]
