Mosiria busts man using sewage water to clean shopping bags for Ksh200 salary
By David Nthua, December 8, 2025Geoffrey Mosiria, the Head of the Customer Care Department in Nairobi County, has revealed being shaken after catching a man washing shopping bags using sewer water.
Through a lengthy but touching post on Facebook on Sunday, December 7, 2025, Mosiria said what he felt was not for the man working by the riverbank but for the innocent customers who unknowingly use the recycled bags.
He said the encounter forced him to picture the deeper impact of the practice, especially on the health of unsuspecting Nairobi residents.
Silent danger exposed
Mosiria explained that he found the man washing used carrier bags next to the Nairobi River.
“Today, I encountered something that left me deeply shaken. I found a man washing used carrier bags right next to the Nairobi River using filthy sewer water. When I approached him, he calmly told me that he had orders from Gikomba and that he is paid just KSh 200 for the job,” Mosiria wrote on Facebook.
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He added that the issue went beyond earnings and touched on the lives of many Kenyans.
In describing the potential health risks, Mosiria said he saw a picture of sickness that could strike anyone.
“I saw an innocent customer somewhere in the city buying foodstuffs wrapped in those same contaminated carrier bags.
“I saw that person lying on a hospital bed battling cancer or trapped in a slum house with a doctor’s recommendation to seek treatment in India costing over KSh5M,” Mosiria’s emotional message reads.
The post continued with a warning on how quietly harm spreads in the city.
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Call for responsibility
Mosiria pushed back against claims that the crackdown will harm livelihoods.
“Someone will say, you are killing someone’s hustle. But they forget the number of lives that this one man and a few traders like him have already destroyed. There is no hustle in killing people,” Mosiria added.
He called on manufacturers of carrier bags to embrace Extended Producer Responsibility to ensure safe collection and recycling.
He added that the reuse of contaminated bags must stop and promised to personally visit manufacturers to discuss safer systems.
Mosiria concluded by saying Nairobi cannot be a city where vulnerable people survive by unknowingly harming others and insisted that protecting life must come first.