Ban on plastic was bound to happen – NEPA
THE BAN on plastic was inevitable, said chief executive officer of the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) Peter Knight.
Speaking at a Gleaner Editors’ Forum last week, Knight pointed to the European Union as one example where bold steps were taken to ensure that legislation was in place to ban single-use plastics.
Come January 1, Jamaica will implement a ban on certain single-use plastic products and Styrofoam packaging.
“Anyone who is conscious and looking at development in the environment and world events would know that a day was going to come when there has to be strong policy decisions on plastics. If you look worldwide, there have been policy responses to the plastic problem,” said Knight.
Supporting that argument, Government Senator Matthew Samuda highlighted the negative effects of plastic on the environment.
“We have to remember that as a small island developing state that is literally surrounded by water, where 70 per cent of our population lives within five kilometres of the ocean, that anything that we do that impacts our coastline negatively, literally immediately, impacts 70 per cent of the population,” said Samuda.
“We have 18,000 registered fishermen, give or take. Every time plastic goes into the marine environment, their life gets a little harder as well, so there’s real deep impact from some of these materials going into that space.”
CORRELATION WITH CERTAIN DISEASES
Questions and concerns have always been raised about the effects of plastic and Styrofoam on the health of humans, particularly if there was a correlation with certain diseases.
“The United Nations Environment Programme published a report earlier this year on plastics. The report now formally labels expanded polystyrene foam as carcinogenic, so people have been accusing it of being such, and scientists have said so,” said Samuda.