Promising progress
IAM more than pleased that the Government has promised to ban single-use plastic bags, plastic straws and Styrofoam next year and to implement a deposit-refund system for certain plastic bottles. Over the last 25 years in this column, I have advocated for exactly that! We will now have to ensure they keep their promises.
Jamaica is not a regional leader in environmental matters, although we could have been if our governments, over the years, had listened to us environmentalists. In fact, we are one of the last countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to take this step. More than 100 countries worldwide have plastic-bag bans already in place, and among our CARICOM partners, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Guyana, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and the US Virgin Islands already have bans in place, with Dominica soon to follow.
Old-time people say that a promise is a comfort to a fool, and I am under no illusion: This promised ban may never get implemented. On January 18, 1990, Jamaica signed the protocol on Special Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) under the Cartagena Convention, and despite many promises, until now – 28 years later – Jamaica still has not ratified it. There are powerful interests that oppose the implementation of a ban on plastics and Styrofoam, and it is in our best interest to expose them.
UNINFORMED NAYSAYERS
Naysayers have written letters to the editor of this newspaper suggesting that because of the ban, thousands will be out of work and bread will be ‘boxed’ out of the mouths of countless poor people who sell meals in Styrofoam. Such persons are either mischievous or live sheltered lives.
Over the last few years, I have been visiting Antigua four times per year on Church business, and lunches are ordered for those of us in the meeting. Antigua banned single-use plastic bags and Styrofoam in 2016, and the meals are delivered – not in Styrofoam containers as would be done here – but in biodegradable cardboard boxes. When I am taken to the supermarket to buy a few necessities, my hosts give me a reusable shopping bag to take with me, for the supermarket will not bag my purchases.
Doing what is right for our natural environment will require a change of culture. Food vendors will have to change the containers they use, and the manufacturers of single-use plastic bags will have to retool to produce environmentally friendly alternatives. No one need lose her job, and no bread need be boxed out of anyone’s mouth. If already 100 countries across the world have implemented bans, we can do it, too.
As for a deposit-refund scheme for plastic bottles, manufacturers have opposed this for years, and governments have not pressed the matter, I suppose because these companies have influence.
Some years ago when I was on the board of the NSWMA National Solid Waste Management Authority, I tried to get them to recommend it to the Government as a way of reducing the combustible plastic deposited in the dump. As happens with glass bottles, if plastic bottles can be redeemed for cash at receiving centres, armies of ‘bottle police’ will comb the highways and hedges collecting plastic bottles, and these will never get into Riverton or Doctor’s Wood or Retirement or Martin’s Hill. Less trucks will be needed, and the cost of solid-waste collection would be less.
The consumer would pay an extra – say $10 – for the plastic bottle and contents, which they could get back afterwards; there would be a disincentive to litter; and it would be a win-win situation.
But plastic-bottle manufacturers have consistently blocked such a plan. It must be pointed out to them that they have a moral responsibility (which can easily be converted into a legal one) to ensure that the commodities they produce do not degrade the quality of life for those of us who live on this beautiful island.