Lyew-Ayee wary of biodegradable packaging
DR PARRIS Lyew-Ayee Jr, chair of the multistakeholder working group on Public Feedback on Plastic Packaging Materials, whose report will inform the decision to ban or not, also has grave concerns about the use of biodegradable packaging as a practical option for the problem.
“Whether it degrades in 50 years or five months, there is still the issue of the lag between disposal and degradation, but beyond that, in order for it to degrade effectively, it needs to be in the right place – meaning a landfill. It if degrades in a gully, it degrades into something and the gully washes that something into the seas that a fish would eat or a bird would eat. A bird that will not eat a big bag can definitely eat pieces of a big bag, so that doesn’t solve the problem,” the scientist told The Gleaner.
NON-SOLUTION SOLUTION
“Degradability works if it is at a landfill, so I call it a non-solution solution. It will work if we have the waste-management system to get it to where it needs to be. So that is actually a big central issue in the discussion so far. We cannot have a ban that has a caveat that it is okay if it (packaging material) has a biodegradable enzyme in it – that still doesn’t solve the problem.
“It’s more than just the plastic bag pieces in a fish belly or a bird belly. To me, the issue is the blocked drains which is not an environmental issue in terms of ecosystem or whatever. This is a straight-up public-health issue. This is a straightup disaster issue as it relates to flooding. This is a straight-up public-transport issue. You have so much going on that it’s not just about reducing 50 years to five weeks or five months, it is about getting to the heart of the problem.”