By David Omurunga
Nakuru County, Kenya: Born 39 years ago, in Matweku village in Rongai Nakuru County, James Wakibia never envisioned that one day he would be wrestling with environmentally indisciplined people and the authorities.
Matweku village where he grew up, is a little-known village, with gullies dominating farmland, and soil erosion carried the day.
“I used to graze my father’s cattle and water them in the nearby river, but little did I know what awaited me after the village life”, says Wakibia.
“They threatened and silenced my family and me, but the inner person kept coming back to me,” he recalled.
Wakibia, an award winner, and a father of 2 recalls very well, in 2016, his social media accounts were hacked, and threatening messages were left behind. All these frustrate his endless efforts to champion issues to do with the plastic ban in Kenya.
The Journey
In class six, his father came home with a camera, but without film inside the film chamber. He went out in the village taking pictures, only to realize that he wasn’t doing justice to his customer’s desire, who were eager to see their images on photographic paper.
“I was very happy taking pictures of my village mates, but unfortunately I didn’t realize that something was not right, the film was lacking”, disturbed Wakibia added.
“I didn’t know that I was just framing imaginary images and producing bright white flashes or nothing”.
The journey didn’t stop there, he went to secondary school where he completed his 4th form in 2003.
But like any other Kenyan young man, issues to do with, indiscipline, alcohol, and drug abuse among other social vices, came knocking.
With a burden of what film was, he relocated to the Capital city of Nairobi, to look for answers, and fend for his life. After close to 6 years of trying his hand at different opportunities that came his way, the satisfaction that he needed, wasn’t realized.
He enrolled in numerous colleges in the city, to study photography, video production, sound, and lighting in order to accomplish his unfinished business when he took imaginary pictures that kept reemerging while he was in the rural home.
What awaited him was a rude shock when one day, he moved from one estate to the other, and guess what he saw, heaps of garbage left to rot on roadsides.
“Each estate that I visited without mentioning names, were heaps and heaps of garbage, leftovers, used pumpers, sanitary towels just on the roadside” he explains.
“What amazed me a lot is the cows similar to ours that I was grazing, fed on the garbage, not to mention the pungent smell produced from the eye sour that was felt kilometers away”, perplexed Wakibia.
He went back to Nakuru, where in 2011 he enrolled at Egerton University, for his Bachelor of Arts degree in communication and media. For 4 years, at the University, he would go through Gioto dumpsite in London ward Nakuru town west sub-county, Nakuru County where he resided.
The garbage on the roadside reminded him of what he saw in Nairobi, something that gave him sleepless nights.
In 2015, he accomplished his mission and was a qualified journalist, ready to serve in any given capacity in any media house.
The anger and the shame he went through while taking blank images in his rural home in Matweku village, kept coming back, again and again.
With assistance and support from family and friends, he got a digital camera. But this time round, the advancement in technology would not allow him, to use film-operated cameras.
He went back and revisited his village mates where he would take pictures again, but not promise them to print and bring them at a later date, but he had an opportunity to show them instantly, to prove to them that he had exactly the image with him.
With discipline in mind, he got accepted by the village mates, and the word went around like bush fire in the village of one of their own, and more so a journalist.
Gabbage Menace
The second assignment was dealing with garbage, and the filthy environment caused by pollution under people’s watch.
“With anger I took pictures of all kinds of garbage, from plastic bottles, nylon papers choking the environment that God meant well for humans and animals”, said Wakibia.
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, Wakibia now communicates in pictures. In 2017 Wakibia played a big role in the plastic ban in the country, through talking pictures.
The hashtag #Isupportbanplasticske made wonders, on all social media platforms. The plastic menace in Kenya is and has been a thorn in the flesh for some time that requires joint efforts, both from the policymakers, the manufacturers, and the end user, to bring to an end pollution.
His work of photography premiered locally and internationally.
Plastic pollution puts pressure on the planet earth, which has a direct connection with matters of climate change, food safety, and the entire system of food production.
Plastic pollution interferes with natural processes, in habitats, hence affecting the entire ecosystem.
In Kenya, the government banned single-use plastic bags on 28th August 2017, in order to secure the environment from pollution.
For instance, in Nairobi’s capital city of Kenya alone over 2,400 tons of solid waste are produced daily, whereas 20pc of it is plastic. This is according to United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
UNEP says that over 400 million tons of plastic are produced annually. Out of the total, half of it is used to make single-use items like shopping bags, straws, and cups.
The disaster still continues in our oceans and water bodies, where UNEP indicates that close to 14 tons of plastic, find its way to the ocean every year.80pc of the aquatic waste floating on the surface water and into the deep sea bottom is plastic.
More so, plastics take a longer time to degrade, which is dangerous to the environment, human beings, and animals.
However, according to National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), it’s illegal to use, import, or manufacture plastic carrier bags in Kenya.
In July 2017, NEMA conducted a study in 3 different abattoirs in counties of Kiambu, Kajiado, and Kenya meat commission, where it was noticed that, within 5 days of continuous slaughtering of the livestock, over 2,200 plastic bags were found in the livestock rumens.
The study showed that plastic bags are ingested by livestock, which has a negative impact on the livestock industry affecting the general well-being of the animals.
Hence affect the quality of milk and beef production. The plastic menace in Kenya is and has been a thorn in the flesh for some time that requires joint efforts, both from the policymakers, the manufacturers, and the end user, to bring to an end pollution.
Plastic pollution puts pressure on the planet earth, which has a direct connection to matters of climate change, food safety, and the entire system of food production.
Plastic pollution interferes with natural processes, in habitats, hence affecting the entire ecosystem.
