In the capital Asmara and other outlying regions, the bags have been replaced by the cotton and nylon and Eritreans have no choice but to adapt to instead.

Since January, "those who import, produce, distribute or sell plastic bags are fined," said Wolde Yohannes, the head of environment wing in the ministry of land, water and environment.

Wolde did not give the amount of the fine, but several sources estimated that offenders can pay several thousands of nakfa.

Since a dollar here is worth 15 nakfa, such fines are hefty in the country where, according to an International Monetary Fund report, annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is 130 dollars (100 euros).

Authorities here are indeed determined to stem the problem.

Individuals are not fined if they are caught with a plastic bag. They simply have to tell the authorities where they got the bag from, explained Wolde.

"If we find that individuals don't cooperate, they could also be fined," said Kibrom Asmarom, an official in the environment department.

Kibrom expressed satisfaction on people's respect on the law, nevertheless.

Authorities had a raft of reasons for declaring war on the flimsy bags that not only block gutters and drains, choke farm animals and marine wildlife, pollute the soil, but also ruin dramatic natural vistas and can take 20 to 1,000 years to decompose.

"The animals were eating the plastic bags and dying," Wolde said. Loss of livestock can be depressing in this poor country that regulary suffers from bouts of drought.

"The bags used to clog the drainage pipes. And they were thrown everywhere, got stuck in the trees, and spoiled the landscape," he added.

As animals were dying and drainage getting choked before the law came into force, some areas around Asmara used to be covered by a sea of coloured plastic bags. Unwittingly, goats and sheep chewed them, the officials said.

Authorities had better plans for the outlawed plastics.

"We don't burn them, factories which make plastic use them for other purposes," said Wolde.

"Only a few people have complained about this ban," he added.

With a threat of fine, Eritrean in the streets of Asmara have no choice but to abide by this environmentally friendly law.

Others have even forgotten that plastic bags did exist and littered their streets and trash-dumbing zones, just before January.

"People have already forgotten about plastic bags, they've moved on to other things," quipped one Eritrean.

While Eritrea has kicked out plastics, a much needed backing from anti-plastic campaign rang at UN Environment Programme governor's meeting in Kenya last week, with Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai leading a league to ban the flimsy types.

Discarded plastic bags "provide several million habitats for mosquitoes to breed that increase the risk of malaria," she said, noting that the disease was a leading cause of infant mortality in Kenya and throughout Africa.

While in Europe, Ireland introduced a similar bid to cut down the use of plastic bags in March 2002, then dubbed a "plastax". By August that year, shoppers had already cut the use of plastic bags by 90 percent, the environment ministry announced.

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