What was advertised as a consultative forum designed to engage stakeholders on the decision by government to impose a ban on the use of polystyrene containers and packaging from June 2014 turned out to be an animated exchange on several more issues amongst different interest groups which, by the end of the discourse, raised as many questions as it answered.
The modest group that gathered at the Roraima Duke Lodge on Monday to hear from Natural Resources Minister Robert Persaud and Acting Tourism and Industry Minister Irfaan Ali included health advocates holding forth on the poisonous properties of Styrofoam, environmental buffs justifiably
tired of the eyesore of mostly discarded food containers and a European diplomat extolling the virtues of supplanting black plastic bags with permanent shopping bags. There were also private businessmen, some contemplating the opportunities that will arise out of next June’s ban and others, mulling the disappearance of what, up until now has been a lucrative business pursuit. Conspicuously absent were the people in the restaurant, snackette and barbecue business, who will now have to think about replacements for Styrofoam food boxes and cups that have become an essential part of their businesses.
Talk of replacements for polystyrene was superseded by a vigorous if controlled discourse on the overwhelming disservice that discarded containers has done to Guyana. It is not only the hideous eyesores that they create on land and water that has become hotly debated but also the fact that they are non-biodegradable and therefore hang around “forever,” contributing to the myriad blockages that create flooding and its knock-on effects.
All that notwithstanding, there were those at Monday’s discourse who were prepared to make their own cases for polystyrene. The truth is that Styrofoam boxes, bowls and cups far surpass cardboard boxes in their effectiveness as food containers, which is the principal reason they are used in Guyana. And while local company Caribbean Container Inc is waiting in the wings with its Eco Pac option, it would seem that the jury may still be out on that. The likely reason being that, by the admission of one of the company’s senior officials, the cost is, at least for the time being, is marginally higher than the polystyrene.
There is a considerable gulf between the uncompromising environmentalists and the hard-nosed businessmen on the issue of polystyrene. The former group desperately wants polystyrene to go away, and quickly. One contributor at the forum even advocated that pre-packed snacks and lunches in disposable polystyrene containers be replaced by permanent pack lunches in non-disposable lunch kits which will have to come from home. There were no lunch ladies and canteen owners there to take him on. You can be sure, however, that once the ban on polystyrene becomes better known other sets of stakeholders, including the continually growing army of canteen operators and small snackette owners and restaurateurs will insist on having their say. It is at that point that the issue will heat up considerably.
There are those who contended that it is not the polystyrene that is the villain but the people who buy and use their contents; the people with their distasteful and dangerous habit of indiscriminate dumping of these short-term containers; and those who co-exist with the discarded containers in communities where the number of polystyrene receptacles littering the streets and canals outweigh the population. “The problem with these things is that they float,” quipped Public Relations Consultant Kit Nascimento.
There are more mountains to climb before June 2014. At last Monday’s forum the discourse already seemed to be boiling over into a broader debate on plastic bottles and other non-biodegradables and the role of the private sector in the environmental mess in which we find ourselves. One particular exchange between an official of a local beverage company and a PR functionary on the matter of just who the litterbugs might be, provided an interesting insight into the kinds of discourses that are likely to take place in the period leading to June 2014. The government appears far from ready to take on the banning of plastic bottles. There are too many other issues, including important commercial ones, to be considered here.
Truth be told while the private sector – through Georgetown Chamber of Com-merce and Industry President Clinton Urling – has positioned itself as a supporter of the banning of polystyrene, the questions of credibility may well arise. While we learnt that the GCCI president’s environmental bona fides might be in order insofar as his restaurant’s take away soups and stews are served in Ecopac containers, the point was made that much of the urban environmental hazard is the fault of the relentless and indiscriminate dumping of the remains of the trading day by businesspeople who appear blissfully unaware of the damage that they do despite the fact that it is they who must endure the consequences with monotonous regularity.
We are, it seems, officiating at the requiem of polystyrene. It will, however, be a protracted requiem. There are still issues like what we will replace these efficient food boxes with. Minister Persaud volunteered that a way might now be open for investment in the production of cardboard boxes. His remark may have been well-intentioned but it got little traction from an audience that knows only too well that while both polystyrene and cardboard are used overwhelmingly as food containers the latter is drippy and decidedly less reliable. The issue of replacements for polystyrene and the varied effects that these will have on businesses, presumably, is the reason why a major importer of polystyrene containers broached the issue of extending the deadline for the banning of polystyrene. That got turned down by Minister Persaud even though he was careful to leave the impression that government understood that it was a matter of having the implementation of the decision preceded by satisfactory discourse with stakeholders. That, hopefully, will allow the thousands of ‘hustlers’ whose livelihoods have, in one way or another, become connected to polystyrene containers to have their say.
After the discourse had spent itself Stabroek Business spoke with CCI Company Secretary Pat Bacchus. She said that while CCI sees the impending ban on polystyrene as “an opportunity” the company is chastened by the fact that its Ecopac initiative failed to ‘make waves’ on the market. She appeared to be dropping a broad hint that CCI might have gotten more than a bit ahead of itself first time around. While she made it clear that the company would evidently respond to such marketing opportunities as might emerge she made it clear that it was not prepared to go down the road of unbridled optimism again.
Not for the first time the issue of the linkage between the performance of the municipality and the environmental dilemma in which we find ourselves came to the fore though it was easy to see that Minister Persaud, particularly, had come to the forum more than adequately prepared to address the politics of the issue.
Perhaps a more relevant aspect of the minister’s contributions were his disclosures on what would appear to be the impending deployment of wardens to monitor the manner in which litter is disposed and the implementation of punitive regulations to sanction those who remain unmindful of the new laws prohibiting the use of polystyrene containers. In the latter regard the discourse recognised two things; first, the country’s poor record in effectively implementing and enforcing laws and, secondly, our abysmally poor record in controlling contraband activities. Those too will have to be taken account of as June 2014 rolls around.
Polystyrene is a petroleum-based plastic made from the styrene monomer. Most people know it under the name Styrofoam, which is actually the trade name of a polystyrene foam product used for housing insulation. Polystyrene is a light-weight material, about 95% air, with very good insulation properties and is used in all types of products from cups that keep your beverages hot or cold to packaging material that keep your computers safe during shipping.
