Caribbean Beat — January/February 2019 (#155)

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green Rich Carey / shutterstock.com The plastic wars As public awareness spreads about the dangers of plastic waste, a growing number of countries around the world have implemented bans on plastic bags and other single-use items. With Jamaica implementing a partial plastics ban, Erline Andrews investigates its possible impact, and progress on similar policies elsewhere in the region 104 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Washed into the ocean, plastic bags can be mistaken by sea turtles for jellyfish, part of their regular diet flooding, and plastic debris was found to be a main cause of clogged waterways. Rwanda followed in 2008, with one of the world’s most stringently enforced plastic bag bans. Today, eleven years later, Rwanda is considered one of the cleanest countries anywhere. Over the past decade, countries and municipalities around the world have started banning or taxing single-use plastics at an exponential rate. What began as a trickle has become a flood. According to the first-ever United Nations report on the issue, of the sixty or so countries that have such regulations, about forty have put them in place within the last two years. In that time, eleven countries from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) have implemented a ban, or announced the intention to do so. “There has been a global shift, and that has been largely attributable to environmental advocacy groups who have been working for decades on these issues, raising awareness,” says Suzanne Stanley, CEO of the Jamaica Environment Trust apply for two-year exemptions. Permanent exemptions for medical reasons will be granted for plastic straws. Breaking the law can result in fines of as much as JA$15,000. The government has pledged to deal with plastic bottles through a deposit-return system. They’ve already experimented with a limited pilot project. “The major impact for me,” says Jamaican Senator Matthew Samuda, “was seeing that there is an island of garbage developing off the coast of Honduras which is coming from Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba — pretty much every island in the eastern Caribbean and Central America.” Samuda set the ball rolling on the ban when he presented a motion that was passed in Parliament. On the lower end of the commitment scale in the region is Trinidad and Tobago, a country whose major export is oil, from which plastic is made. A bill written in 2012 to facilitate the recycling of plastic bottles has yet to be passed by “There is an island of garbage developing off the coast of Honduras which is coming from Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba,” says Jamaican Senator Matthew Samuda It started in 1990, when Nantucket, an island off the US state of Massachusetts, became the first local authority to ban plastic shopping bags. Concerns about the convenient and widely popular items had begun to emerge as early as the 1970s, when researchers observed plastic litter in the ocean that was harming marine life. Animals were getting entangled in and ingesting the trash. In 2002, Ireland became the first country to mandate that consumers be directly charged for plastic bags. By that time, the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the world’s largest collection of floating trash, had been discovered. That year, Bangladesh became the first country to ban plastic bags entirely. The south Asian nation is susceptible to (JET) — one such group. In September, Jamaica announced one of the most comprehensive plastic waste control policies in the region, the result of months of work by a government-appointed task force that consulted various stakeholders. Jamaica, with a population just shy of three million, imports about 1.4 billion plastic bags per year, according to the Caribbean Policy Research Institute, a Jamaican think tank. Most of them wind up in landfills, or are not properly disposed of, and contribute to flooding. But, beginning in January 2019, this number is expected to fall drastically. The country’s new policy bans the importation, manufacturing, and distribution of styrofoam containers, plastic straws, and plastic bags smaller than twenty-four by twenty-four inches. Manufacturers and importers can Parliament. In July 2018, the minister of planning announced the intention to stop the importation of styrofoam containers by the start of the new year. She gave no further details or updates. The private sector has picked up the slack. Massy Stores, the biggest supermarket chain in Trinidad and Tobago and the English-speaking Caribbean, started charging for plastic bags last July. In Barbados, they were joined by a group of other major supermarkets in an initiative organised by the NGO Future Centre Trust. So far, other supermarkets and retailers in T&T haven’t followed Massy’s lead. Customer resistance seems stronger in T&T than elsewhere in the region, and it’s likely not a risk smaller chains and stores were willing to take. But Massy T&T marketing manager Anthony Choo Quan believes the WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 105
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Jamaica Barbados Trinidad & Tobago
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TOTALTEC OILFIELD SERVICES GUYANA I
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Contents No. 155 • January/Februa
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eyond ordinary... ...Explore the ex
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A MESSAGE From OUR CEO Dear Custome
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Carnival, Trinidad and Tobago In th
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need to know Top Three PAPJAZZ hits
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need to know asife / shutterstock.c
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need to know Actor Adrian Green in
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need to know Vahni Capildeo gets in
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maria nunes Veteran fancy sailor ma
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ookshelf Q&A A View of the Empire a
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screenshots courtesy ian harnarine
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Page 57: Immerse jason audain 55 Panorama Be
Page 60 and 61: Dwayne Watkins Photography A masque
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Page 64 and 65: Jason Audain The young revellers of
Page 66 and 67: Moko jumbie and designer Alan Vaugh
Page 68 and 69: Jason Audain Surprised by an explos
Page 70 and 71: ackstory You may not know its name,
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Page 76 and 77: icon Dear Winston, the Immortal, No
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Page 80 and 81: Hydar Dewachi Adam Patterson’s wo
Page 82 and 83: In yet another Caribbean island, Pa
Page 84 and 85: own words “I’ve always felt, as
Page 86 and 87: into the wider world, you encounter
Page 88 and 89: ound trip All about blue Of all the
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Page 104 and 105: ucket list Little Tobago A wildlife
Page 108: In 2017, photographer Caroline Powe
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Page 113 and 114: The Tontons Macoutes were a strange
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Caribbean Beat — January/February 2019 (#155)

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