Samuda eyes 30 years of success as plastics loophole closes July 1

For Jennifer Higgins, a cookshop operator in Kingston, the Government’s move to implement the fourth stage of its plastic ban is one about which she has mixed emotions.

Higgins, who has been selling cooked food products for more than 30 years, said although she supports the idea of returning Jamaicans to use paper boxes and helping to preserve the environment, some of her customers prefer styrofoam or plastic food boxes.

“Back in the day, you remember how we used to sell and serve food in rectangular white paper boxes, especially in schools? Something like what they serve cakes in at Sugar & Spice? I guess that’s what they [the Government] wants us to return to, but, to be honest, when you pour the gravy in those boxes, especially the curry gravy, it stains it and can stain the customer. And you know nuff people love come here and ask for fry chicken and curry gravy!” Higgins told The Gleaner on Sunday while at her business establishment.

Expensive paper boxes

“So, I think due to that [the state of the paper boxes then], the styrofoam boxes started to be produced over a decade ago and replaced the paper boxes, but now we have to return to them it seems... . Another thing, the good brown uptown-looking food boxes, weh dem want we sell inna, can sometimes be expensive for us. Mi naa seh we can’t afford it, but [if we are] to buy them, we nah go save back,” she said.

According to Higgins, the “thin plastic food boxes” which started to be sold after the Government implemented the ban of styrofoam containers, have been satisfying to her customers, and she wished that a ban would not be coming into effect on July 1.

Higgins’ perspective on the matter is one shared by numerous other cookshop operators, vendors, restaurant operators, distributors, but Matthew Samuda, minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, is insisting that the time has come for the nation to obey the actual intent of the new law, and not try to go around it.

While speaking Friday, during a ceremony hosted by Earth Ambassadeurs on the eve of World Oceans Day, Samuda said he believed the move was a way for Jamaica to build a stronger blue economy and reiterated that the other items to be banned are food containers made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polycarbonate (PC), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and, in some cases, high density polyethylene (HDPe) plastics.

“[These items] were never intended to replace the styrofoam or expanded polystyrene foam containers,” Samuda said during the ceremony held at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston. “That is documented in the technical working group’s minutes that was accepted by the private sector, and had about eight months of what I would call absolute success, post the styrofoam arrangement, and then somebody read the regulations and said, ‘Ha! They’ve forgotten something’, and you had PET and other plastic containers,” Samuda said.

“But, because we have about eight months of absolute success, I know we can have eight years, 20 years [and] 30 years of absolute success by closing that loophole. So, in an expanded manner, we will ensure that food containers, as I said, with viable volumes of alternative that are biodegradable and certainly not as deleterious to the environment, will replace these plastic containers as at July 1, and I encourage citizens to look out for those items that we publish both online and in the national papers,” he said.

The right time

He said stakeholders have been made aware since 2022, when they went through the list at the launch of the National Biodegradability Standards at the Bureau of Standards’ offices.

“It is our perspective as the Government that now is the right time to implement this new phase,” he said.

Now, Samuda, the minister with responsibility for the environment, is encouraging all stakeholders to support the fourth phase of the single-use plastic ban which should have started on June 1, but was extended to July 1 instead.

While the fourth phase of the ban is now set to take effect on July 1, the private sector will be given six months from that date to deplete existing stocks of single-use plastic food containers.

All orders placed prior to July 1 can be landed; however, evidence of such orders must be presented to the relevant authorities.

A further ban on cosmetic and personal care items, with intentionally added micro plastics or plastic microbeads, is scheduled to take effect on July 1 next year.

After his presentation at the World Oceans Day ceremony, Samuda went to the Senate on Friday, and announced that a national public education campaign will be launched to support implementation of the fourth phase of the ban.

“The Government has said, since 2018, and implemented on January 1, 2019, that the plastics that fall into the category of non-recyclable, that have viable alternatives available in the marketplace, will be banned... . That targets about one per cent of your waste stream, according to the IDB’s (Inter-American Development Bank) waste characterisation study... so it’s about targeting material that we simply cannot process and store safely for the next 450 years,” Samuda said.

“The economic cost of these items is greater than the initial purchase price to the consumer. That’s what this targets, so in the next phase, the easier items to discuss are the personal care products that have microbeads plastics in them,” he said.

Samuda also noted that the extended deadline before the July 2025 ban on the importation, distribution, and sale of personal care or cosmetic care products which contain intentionally added plastic microbeads or microplastics is to allow the trade to make the necessary adjustments and to further sensitise the population.

“This will cause very little economic disruption, so it’s a measure that we are prepared to take and will take on July 1 by way of cutting importation of these items, and it’s important to understand,” Samuda said.

“It’s not that it’s a huge weight of plastic. It is because even when Soapberry [Wastewater Treatment Plant] is upgraded, even when we put in tertiary treatment plants, there is no wastewater treatment plant on Earth that I have seen that can extract these microplastics. [This] means they’re going into your soil. They’re going into the near shore environment. They’re going into fish bellies. It is not healthy, and it’s not good for human health or environmental health, [and] those will be gone, certainly from an import perspective, starting July 1,” Samuda said.

Regarding garbage collection of plastic waste and more, Samuda stated that Jamaicans’ consumption patterns create more waste than the economy can afford to collect.

“We have to, as a state, invest in sufficient rolling stock to collect the volume in cubic metres of waste that we generate, because you simply do not have that volume of rolling stock current. The Government is moving to deal with that by procuring an additional 50 [garbage] trucks this year, and it’s programmed to procure another 50 trucks next year, and it will continue so doing, as long as your economic health is maintained, so you will catch up eventually with your rolling stock, which is the volume of being able to collect your garbage,” Samuda said.

“Invariably, plastics become offensive to us because we see it. You drive passed a gully and it’s floating ... it’s visible. It’s such an issue because it stares you in the face,” he said.

In recognition of World Oceans Day, Samuda said it was important that Jamaica looks at issues affecting the oceans, what is being done locally and internationally and how what is being done about the situation will benefit the nation.

World Oceans Day was globally recognised on Saturday. It is an international day that is recognised annually on June 8. The concept was originally proposed in 1992 by Canada’s International Centre for Ocean Development and the Ocean Institute of Canada at the Earth Summit – UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Also present at the ceremony were Marsha Smith, state minister in the Ministry of Education and Youth; Olivier Guyonvarch, French ambassador to Jamaica; and Bertrand Smith, director general of the Maritime Authority of Jamaica.

For her part, Smith, who was also a speaker at the ceremony, said she believed one way the education sector can contribute to the improvement of the ocean is through science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) education.

“If we are going to empower ourselves to truly be the ocean’s guardians, we have to know why. We have to understand the ecosystem. We have to understand the ecosystem of the land as well, because, based on what has been presented, a lot of what degraded the ocean is actually activity on land. So there must be an understanding about land utilisation coupled with utilisation of maritime resources,” Smith said.

“Science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics are the very things that we are going to use to solve issues relating to conservation and protection of our maritime resources,” she said.

She said these subject areas are the tools young persons need to raise awareness of the types of careers - such as data analysts, policymakers - and skills needed to be filled in the future for aquaculture and the protection of the ocean.

Smith said the theme of the Earth Ambassadeurs’ ‘Guided by Research. Improving our Relationship with Nature’ summarises the need for STEAM to be the foundation of the activities of current and future ocean guardians.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com