So, the scientists in Japan have finally figured out how to make plastic “disappear” like a politician’s campaign promise. They’re calling it a breakthrough - a material held together by “salt bridges” that dissolves in the ocean without leaving microplastics. It sounds lovely on paper, doesn’t it? A magic bag that vanishes the moment it hits the water. But let’s be realists here in Nairobi: since when has “disappearing” ever worked in favor of the common man? If this plastic dissolves in saltwater, I give it five minutes in the humid, salty air of Mombasa before your groceries are all over the pavement.

This isn’t about saving the coral reefs off Zanzibar; it’s about giving global corporations a “get out of jail free” card. They want to keep the assembly lines moving without the guilt of seeing their logos choked down by a sea turtle. For us, it’s just another expensive tech we’ll be forced to import while our own local waste management stays stuck in the 1990s. We already banned single-use plastics, yet you can still find a “blackie” bag in every corner shop if you know who to ask. This new “salt-soluble” dream is just the next iteration of The Ghost in the Ledger: How Private Equity is Cannibalizing the African Commons, where the solution is sold back to us by the same people who broke the system.

Speaking of things disappearing, have you seen the price tag on Kenya Airways? The Treasury is out here hawking the “Pride of Africa” to foreign investors for a cool KSh 258 billion. While we’re distracted by Japanese chemistry sets, our national assets are being auctioned off like second-hand mitumba at Gikomba. It’s a multipronged strategy: keep the youth talking about “innovation” and “green energy” while the elders sign away the sovereign soul of the country to balance a ledger that’s been bleeding red for a decade.

President Ruto is playing the long game for 2027, deploying these “calculated strategies” to look modern and eco-friendly on the global stage. It’s easy to talk about “planned disappearance in nature” when you’re busy making public funds disappear into “consultancy fees.” They tell us to rethink materials at their core, but maybe we should rethink the core of our leadership. If we can design plastic to dissolve in hours, why can’t we design a government that doesn’t dissolve the moment a foreign investor walks in with a suitcase of dollars?

In the end, this “breakthrough” is just another distraction for the middle class to feel good about their consumption. The ocean might eat the plastic, but the debt is still eating us. We’re being told to wait for a future where packaging harmlessly dissolves, while we live in a present where our livelihoods are being shredded by “strategic investments.” Don’t get blinded by the science; in Kenya, if something sounds too good to be true, it’s probably because someone is already looking for the exit door with your tax money in their pocket.