The improper disposal and treatment of plastic waste is one of the gravest environmental concerns facing Guyana and addressing it must involve all, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said.
It said that to mitigate this problem, efficient means of recycling and/or reusing of plastic, particularly PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles must be found. It stressed that everyone — individuals, households, regulatory agencies, municipalities, importers and manufacturers – must become involved.
“The choice is clear: do we continue to add plastic wastes to our environment, or do we take action to reduce it?” the EPA asked in an information bulletin on May 23.
The EPA is encouraging the establishment of appropriate and innovative waste disposal mechanisms and proper waste disposal practices. “In the face of prevailing unacceptable practices, the agency urges enforcement of the penalties stipulated in national policies and legislation in an attempt to create a reversal of the current negative trend,” the EPA said.
The EPA said that PET bottles generation has increased dramatically, particularly over the last five years. It said that over 73 million PET bottles were generated from importers and manufacturers in Guyana. The greatest manifestation of the magnitude of the plastic waste problem was demonstrated during the great flood of 2005.
The EPA said that while the problem might be irreversible currently, it was practical to consider alternatives to the use of plastics given the universal dilemma of global warming and increasing focus and awareness on environmental sustainability.
The agency pointed out that recycling of plastics was being practiced in many countries around the world and this was often supported by laws, which hold producers of plastic waste responsible for their removal from the waste stream. “As a result, interventions have emerged which address plastics in the environment. Some manufacturers have found ways of reducing the amounts of plastic they use for packaging without affecting the amount of products being packaged. However the truth is that recycled plastics are approved for limited uses and the recycling process still uses energy,” the EPA said.
So far, despite several expressions of interests, there was no facility set up and operating successfully for the recycling of plastic waste in the environment. Efforts to reach the Executive Director of the EPA, Doorga Persaud, were unsuccessful.
For some time now, Banks DIH and Demerara Distillers Limited have had their own in-house recycling facilities for their waste.
The two beverage companies had been part of a national committee formed around May 2002 with a mandate to explore solutions to plastic waste. This committee had also been mandated to come up with a national plan involving a number of regional systems.
But according to sources, all of the meetings and workshops with stakeholders amounted to nothing because the primary problem seems to be financing initiatives to get rid of plastic waste.
Plastic bottles, Styrofoam food boxes and plastic bags continue to clog drainage systems and waterways in places along the coast. Plastic bottle littering has turned into one of the biggest environmental challenges for Guyana with an estimated 500,000 plastic bottles discarded each month. This was manifested in the 2005 Great Flood, which clearly demonstrated that drainage systems were seriously compromised owing to blockage.
This newspaper was told that the problem might be tied to trying to find money-making ventures to deal with the issue and this might not be possible. Although the amount of plastic in the environment might seem overwhelming, the amounts were not commercially viable when collected and compacted, the source pointed out.
According to information reaching this newspaper, a company based in Barbados had wanted to buy compacted plastic from Guyana and had wanted the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) to play a part in the collection and compaction of plastic waste. However, according to the source, the M&CC was uncomfortable with the proposal since it would have meant a lot of money, which the city did not have, being spent on setting up the collection and compaction facilities.
The source suggested that Guyana’s best bet at the moment might be to devise a system of collection of the recyclable waste and dispose of it in the waste management facilities at Mandela and the imminent Haag Bosch facility, without tying economic gain to it.
