The price difference is stark. More eco-friendly options, such as disposable paper bags, cost around four times more: at least 4,000 Somali shillings ($0.17 at the widely used unofficial exchange rate) compared with 1,000 shillings ($0.04) for simple plastic bags.
Meanwhile, more than half of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the government.
“If we are forced to stop [using] the plastic bags, we don’t have an alternative that is cheap and can replace it,” said Shamso Muqtar, a 41-year-old mother-of-five, who sells vegetables at the market.
“The government should have evaluated the matter”.
– ‘Keep selling’ –
Garad Abdullahi Ali, from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, said the continued presence of plastic was due to traders stocking up before the ban.
“They are allowed to continue selling… until what is in stock in the country is exhausted,” he told AFP.
Higher end boutiques and supermarkets — catering to the city’s small middle-class — have been more welcoming of the new legislation.
“This a positive sign, I hope all the grocers start using it too,” said Ahmed Roble, a boutique owner along Mogadishu’s popular Maka Al-Mukarama Road.
Supermarket customer Abdirahman Omar Mohamed said he was glad to see less of something that was “killing human beings and animals”.
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