While most people in the country have adopted the habit of carrying hot food stuffs in small plastic bags without realizing they carry a time-bomb that may explode to cause a series of diseases including cancer, here come medical specialists giving a warning over the unhealthy social norm.
Executive Director of the Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Dar es salaam Dr Twalib Ngoma has come up to echo his concern over the use of plastic bags in carrying hot foods, saying such bags are the main cause of cancer, infertility, kidney and throat ailments.
He has echoed other medical experts in the world who say that plastic bags are made of hydro-carbon elements including polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene and polystyrene causing cancer and other diseases that are assimilated into the food when the plastic bag gets warm.
Dr. Ngoma who is also Director for the International Network For Cancer Treatment and Research (INCTR) - Tanzania urged Tanzanians to refrain from the habit of carrying hot foods in plastic bags, lest more patients would be flocking to health centers in a country whose medical technology leaves a lot to be desired.
Tanzanians especially urban residents are notoriously reputed for using plastic bags. The over 45-million nation has more than 5 million people living in Dar Es Salaam all of whom can be justifiably regarded as regular users of plastic bags in carrying hot foods.
In such a city typical of the era whereby people prefer carrying hot food stuffs in the name of ‘take away’ or even hot bites in small plastic bags to their homes or offices such health risks may be apparently hard to avoid.
But backing his colleague, Dr Ally Nzige, Director of Mikocheni Reproductive Health Clinic suggested Tanzanians to use alternative carriers namely foil or plain paper in storing hot foods, and that they should avoid printed papers as the ink is also a hazardous material to human health.
An expert from Tanzania Food and Drug Authority (TFDA) commended medical experts for the call confirming that plastic bags contain a variety of chemicals which if exposed to high temperature they got assimilated into foods.
He did not only frown at people who use plastic bags in carrying hot foods but also those who use the bags in covering foods and bites believing that it is the best way of preservation.
Last week a renowned Tanzanian environmentalist warned the public against the use of plastic bags saying it was a source for various diseases.
The Zanzibar government banned imports, manufacture and use of plastic bags in 2005 amid public skeptism over whether the law would be effective.
About a decade latter, Zanzibaris seem to have forgotten the existence of plastic bags.
While Zanzibar had just taken a leaf from the book of other nations, Dr. Terezya Huvisa, former Minister for Environment at the Vice President’s Office announced a national ban on plastic bags under 100 microns about a year ago.
However, it is still a public puzzle as to what happened to the law that would be primarily effective in Mainland Tanzania.
SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY
