Peter Espeut
EVERY YEAR on April 22 the world celebrates Earth Day, a day when we focus on environmental matters. In some ways it is like beating a dead horse. Say what you will about the importance of the environment, about the importance of the sustainability of economic development, about the importance of passing on to future generations at least the same endowment of animals and plant species which we inherited, and you will get smiles and the nodding of heads, just before business as usual resumes.
I took note when former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson called for a campaign to promote appropriate values and attitudes, and I notice that our new PM is singing the same tune. Sustainable development towards sustainable prosperity requires new environmental values and attitudes, changes in the way we live our daily lives.
Sustainable living requires behaviour change, which is never easy. I look forward to our new PM's values and attitudes campaign containing earth values, the same attitudes we wish to communicate every Earth Day. A values and attitudes campaign that does not communicate proper environmental values and attitudes, is counterfeit. And a values and attitudes campaign not backed up with smart incentives and disincentives will be futile.
Central to sustainable development are values and attitudes towards waste and trash. We used to drink sodas exclusively from glass bottles which were resold to the company for washing and reuse. You never saw glass bottles lying around or in the trash because they had resale value. Then came shandy made in Trinidad, sold in glass bottles which had no resale value. By this time our glass factory which bought waste glass by the pound had been sold to a competing foreign glass company and shut down (that is one way to beat the competition). Shandy bottles then lay everywhere, and were even pelted on the stage at concerts. No one ever pelted a returnable soft drink bottle! That lesson was too hard for some to learn.
Then came soft drinks sold in plastic (PET) bottles (which are cheaper to produce) which had no resale value. Since then we have been drowning in plastic bottles. 'PET equals Trash' is an accurate slogan, and there has always been a simple solution: require the distributors to put a deposit on them so that empty PET bottles now have value. They will disappear from trash cans in a flash! And Jamaica will be cleaner for her residents and voters. The manufacturers/distributors can then use some of their increased profits to recycle PET bottles. But government is the hostage of the private sector because of the big campaign donations they give from these profits, and the comfort of Jamaica's residents and voters comes second. And so we must deal with the PET trash while the companies make big profits (part of which they pay out to political parties as campaign contributions).
Who are the real citizens of Jamaica? For whom is the country governed? In the past Jamaica was governed in the interests of the private sector: the plantation owners. Today it is governed in the interests of - the private sector: the owners of businesses. Nothing much has changed.
As Earth Day passes and we reflect on the changes in values and attitudes required for sustainable development and sustainable prosperity (for Jamaican citizens, by the way - not just for private businesses) it should be clear that government and political parties need to make big changes in whom they serve and in their mindset. Since the private sector did not much fund the Hon. Mrs. Simpson Miller's presidential campaign, she owes them nothing. This is a good opportunity to put people first as we deal with serious environmental issues such as PET trash.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.
