Zim ban on kaylite has traders reeling

EXTRAORDINARILY, and without warning, Zimbabwe this week banned kaylite packaging, which is used in almost every take-away shop and by street vendors selling food from the streets.

Anyone caught packaging goods in the familiar kaylite/ polystyrene containers could be fined more then R50 000.

The Environmental Management Agency, EMA, has invoked a 2012 statutory instrument which prevents the manufacture or import of kylite for distribution in Zimbabwe.

The shops argued that the ban caught them unawares and did not give them an opportunity to find suitable alternative packaging and food outlets say cardboard containers leak.

A Harare vendor who sells small food items in the city centre said he didn’t have an alternative to kaylite. He said even if he did he would not be able to afford it.

“I have no other way of selling my food (chicken, gravy and pap). So what must I do?” he said yesterday. He also said he did not recall the 2012 ban on kaylite.

Hlanganani Ncube, a supplier of kaylite, said the ban would put him out of business.

He told Bulawayo’s Chronicle daily newspaper that his clients were calling him and looking for alternative packaging materials.

“They are panicking because a $5 000 fine could shut their businesses.”

EMA spokesperson Steady Kangata said there was no going back and the deadline for the ban was long overdue but traders had ignored it.

He also said there were alternatives to kaylite like biodegradable plastic packaging.

He said Minister of Environment, Water and Climate, Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, gave a six- month grace period which ended mid last year for the removal of kaylite.