DRASTIC PLASTIC

The following statement was issued by The Royal Society towards the end of 2009: "Since the millennium, we have produced nearly as much plastic as in the prior half-century. Next year, 300 million tonnes of plastic will be manufactured worldwide and one-third of all plastics will go into packaging.” If that statement doesn’t sound very worrying, then think again, because it should scare the hell out of you.

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Plastics threaten the health of humans everywhere, and while most of us carry plastic chemicals in our tissues, our children often carry higher concentrations. ‘Plasticizers’, which can mimic or disrupt normal hormones, are used in food packaging, flooring and other products and three-quarters of American infants carry measurable levels.

Bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical used in clear bottles and canned food linings, has been linked to type 2 diabetes, immune system disorders, abnormal penile development, and behavioral problems in toddlers. Ninety-three percent of people tested by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control had BPA in their urine.

Not only that, plastic debris kills some 100,000 whales, dolphins and other marine mammals and two million birds each year, says the Ocean Conservancy.

In short, plastic is dangerous, poisonous and indestructible. Not a good combination.

Unfortunately, plastic is everywhere: from bags, packaging, food containers and beverage bottles, through to cups, plates, trays and cutlery. Worldwide, over one billion plastic bags are handed to consumers daily. In the U.S., eight billion pounds of bags are trashed each year, costing retailers and consumers $4 billion. The petroleum used to make plastic bottles alone could fuel one million cars for a year.

After that little lot you might be surprised to hear me say that plastic is actually a great invention. It is, provided it’s re-used again and again and again – because it’s built to last forever. And this where the problem lies because we use plastic for the wrong things. To use plastic around food is, at best, unwise and to use it just once for a beer or a soda, only throw it away, is madness.

Here in St. Maarten, the problem is compounded by the fact that there are few recycling programs on island (not that you can recycle plastic) and we tend to have a ‘who cares?’ attitude to trash by throwing it away pretty much everywhere: the ocean, roadsides, lagoons, beaches, etc. The embarrassing ‘plastic trash mountain’ in the middle of Great Salt Pond, being a testament to that.

So, what is the solution? How do we somehow try to reverse 60-odd years of plastic craziness?

Well, the answer lies in a material called PLA (polylactic acid). PLA is 100% plant-based material and is completely biodegradable. Excitingly, PLA can be used to make water bottles, cups or forks that look exactly like plastic, but that are fully compostable. This means that after a matter of months, given the right conditions, these products will return to plant matter, leaving no toxic residue or nasty pollutants to deal with. They can also be incinerated without any harmful side-effects.

Happily, a new company based in St. Maarten called Good2Go, has begun to reverse the trend of ‘plastic with everything’. By being the first specialist supplier of PLA products to customers on the islands, they hope to start a revolution against the one-way flow of plastic into the Caribbean.

Elaine Christopher, director of Good2Go says: “You only have to look around to see a small part of the massive problem plastics are causing our island. It’s estimated that over five 40-foot containers of single-use plastic products are brought onto our island every week and that is just unacceptable. Switching away from single-use disposable plastic to using biodegradable alternatives will make a huge beneficial difference to St. Maarten and the Caribbean.”

This is a problem that literally won’t go away unless we all change our ways, and the signs are everywhere that this has gone far enough.

Now is the time for all of us to say NO to plastic and to insist on PLA today. It’s no exaggeration to say that if we do nothing to stop the 'trashing' of our beautiful ocean and golden beaches, our visitors will.

They'll go somewhere else.

Will Welch
Good 2 Go