Lobby for enforcement of beverage container laws

Jun 02, 2023

Every day is World Environment Day, not just June 5. We need immediate action.

While the largest plastic polluters are green-washing the plastic addiction by sponsoring a few green recycling "bins", we ask how many plastic bottles are being collected if there is no meaningful refund. They are marketing the recycling of a fraction of one per cent of their deadly BPA plastics and shamelessly applauding themselves.

While we face increased cancer risks from microplastics which are in our fish and our food chain, they are celebrating their balance sheets. Once microplastics get into our bodies, we do not have mechanisms to remove it and the risk of cancer increases.

Microplastics are not just in the Caribbean, they are worldwide. Everyone is eating fish, and the world production of plastic is doubling every three years while our leaders do nothing and say less.

We must fight and lobby by every means for:

1. The blacklisting and boycott of all beverage companies that produce these cancer-causing plastic bottles which are not BPA free. BPA is the chemical compo­nent in the plastic that leeches into our food or water, whether it is hot or cold. BPA plastic is a known carcinogen, yet they are producing and giving our beloved children soft drinks and water in BPA plastic.

All of these things are causing a real impact, real cancer and degenerative diseases. While we suffer and die, they pollute and profit. We must boycott these companies until they produce reusable packaging that is BPA free, and until there are refundable, legislated recycling programmes to ensure that we avert this ecocide.

2. Beverage container recycling legislation—you never see a discarded Carib because of its monetary value (30 cents per bottle). To simply charge ten cents on plastic bottle will help to stem the colossal waste and poisoning while giving birth to an entire recycling sector, with hundreds of jobs.

3. The United Nations encou­rages beverage container bills and the enforcement and the passing of the legislation worldwide.

4. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to withhold all loans, on the condition that there are beverage container recycling bills in place that are passed, institutionalised and functioning before any additional loans are given to any nation.

5. The United Nations encou­rages, funds and supports civil society groups, as well as researchers, to produce more reports on the impact of microplastics on human health.

6. Support, encourage and get civil society to join with universi­ties and centres of learning to have microplastic conferences. Universities and centres of learning have a critical role to play and they must be woken up.

7. Buy a metal bottle or glass bottle and put your water in it. Send your child filtered tap water rather than a BPA plastic bottle.

We must unify as a global family. We cannot depend on profiteers or politicians. It's up to us, today and every day.

Gary Aboud

Corporate secretary,

Fishermen and Friends

of the Sea (FFOS)

When the government throws around money in the way it did in hosting the two-day regional symposium on crime, its claims that it has no money to spend on urgent goods and services sound hollow.

By any measure, a price tag of $3.4 million for a two-day event where guests are accommodated at the conference location itself is staggering. An expenditure of $1.3 million on set design, banners, signage and media services, for example, needs more than disclosure; it requires details including the identity of contractors and, above, evidence of a return on investment.

With each passing year, Pride Month, celebrated in June, provides as much a commemorative function as it does a gauge for assessing how far LGBTQ rights in T&T have come and paradoxically, how far there is still yet to go.

I contend here that there are three things vital to the functioning of countries that are in disarray here, namely the system of law and order, the education system, and the labour market.

"Guys just had this blood-lust. Psychos. Absolute psychos. And we bred them." So said an Australian soldier about the war crimes committed by the Australian SAS (Special Air Service) when the scandal first broke in 2016. And the Australian Defence Force, bless its heart, actually took the accusations seriously.

I am sure I got it wrong. The court ruled in favour of a disabled six-year-old who has not been afforded proper care for the Zika virus by the Ministry of Health.

The court awarded an amount of money for the mother to continue to take care of this child. Now I understand that this Government is planning to appeal the judgment.

Every day is World Environment Day, not just June 5. We need immediate action.

While the largest plastic polluters are green-washing the plastic addiction by sponsoring a few green recycling "bins", we ask how many plastic bottles are being collected if there is no meaningful refund. They are marketing the recycling of a fraction of one per cent of their deadly BPA plastics and shamelessly applauding themselves.

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