Drinks firms should buy back plastic containers

Johnathan Lamey, Contributor

I view with mixed feelings the noble efforts of our various environmental organisations (including those of my own Portland Environment Protection Association) that attempted to give a face-lift to our coastal areas on the recently celebrated International Coastal Clean-up Day. However, as noble as it all appeared, I must admit that the root causes of the problem were not really addressed.

By far, the major portion of the solid waste picked up on the coastal areas was comprised of plastic containers. Plastic bottles and other containers have been carelessly and irresponsibly discarded by individuals and organisations who do not seem to give a hoot about the short- and indeed long-term damage to the health and safety of the planet! I am not into merely complaining, but instead I offer to the nation, region and the world simple and straight forward solutions to the plastic menace.

Get serious

As a start, our legislators must get serious and frame laws that force manufacturers and distributors (local and foreign) to recycle all generated waste by a system of 'buying-back' the used containers that are paid for in the product price, and that they have indirectly dumped on the society. The manufacturers and distributors have conveniently imposed a one-way process of 'sale without return,' thereby forcing consumers to seek their own methods of containment or discarding of used containers. Compare the fate of drink bottles made of glass: no valuable resaleable bottle can be found carelessly discarded anywhere!

I do submit that the same means of conveyance - ships, planes, trucks and vans - that carry the plastic containers filled with products to sales outlets and eventually to our homes, workplaces, centres of entertainment, educational institutions and our streets, should be forced to carry them back to their origins by the same distribution routes! Of course, shredding the plastic empties can reduce their volumes down to roughly 1/100th of the original, so that containment and transporting back to the origin or other approved location is inherently possible!

A warning

This is a warning to those responsible for improper disposal and resulting environmental pollution, because if we fail to implement meaningful solutions, we will be contributing to the long-term contamination of the environment by (a) the leaching of dangerous cancer-causing substances such as dioxins into our soil and water systems; (b) the provision of breeding places for vectors, such as mosquitoes, that can transmit diseases capable of annihilating the entire human race; and (c) we will be seeing to the killing of turtles and other marine species that mistake plastic bottles for jellyfish (a part of their diet). Of course, these marine animals will eventually become extinct, creating an environmental void of grim proportions. In the future, our children may therefore only see them in pictures if the trend continues!

Above all, I deem it a most irresponsible omission by our legislators when they fail to legally stop the various types of product containers from being allowed to become 'disposable' in Jamaica. Used materials and containers must be properly managed, as a legal requirement, by those who deal in them in any shape or form.

As a further solution, I implore us all to apply the four Rs of waste management thus: (a) Refuse to take somebody's waste (b) Reduce waste by deliberately purchasing products that do not generate waste (c) Reuse materials and containers if at all possible, safe, or permissible (d) Recycle as far as possible instead of dumping containers and what we call 'solid waste materials'; all materials are useful in some way!

Major Johnathan Lamey is president of the Portland Environment Protection Association (PEPA). Feedback may be sent to letters@gleanerjm.com