SASCHA WIL­SON

The bev­er­age re­cy­cle law is com­plete and will soon be go­ing to the Cab­i­net for its con­sid­er­a­tion.

This was re­vealed by San Fer­nan­do West MP and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi at a tree plant­i­ng ex­er­cise at San Fer­nan­do Dis­trict Scouts Head­quar­ters in San Fer­nan­do on Sun­day.

While the law will al­low the coun­try to prop­er­ly re­cy­cle its plas­tic, he said no amount laws will make a re­al im­pact if peo­ple don’t change their at­ti­tudes and come on board.

He added, “And I am al­so pleased to tell you that we went a step fur­ther. We are right now eval­u­at­ing the base of com­pa­nies to es­tab­lish some­thing called waste to en­er­gy where we take all of the garbage, we take all of the waste and we con­vert it to en­er­gy but that can’t be done un­til we take pride in our com­mu­ni­ty.”

T&T, he urged, need­ed the par­tic­i­pa­tion of all of cit­i­zens. “The Gov­ern­ment can give you bev­er­age re­cy­cling laws, laws to stop plas­tic from be­ing thrown away. We can in­crease lit­ter fines. We can cre­ate re­cy­cling in­dus­tries, all of which we have done. We have banned Sty­ro­foam…but we can’t change peo­ple.” the AG said.

He re­called that in a clean up ex­er­cise, not far from the head­quar­ters, they emp­tied four 40 foot con­tain­ers of garbage from around peo­ple’s homes.

He said the garbage con­sist­ed of plas­tic, bot­tles, tires, fridges, stoves and cars.

He said, “We can­not al­low our coun­try to con­tin­ue to be pol­lut­ed be­cause it af­fects all of us.”

Re­call­ing that he start­ed as a cub scout at the age of six, Al-Rawi said the scout move­ment teach­es ho­n­our, dig­ni­ty and dis­ci­pline.

“Things which are miss­ing in our coun­try to­day. Things which are im­por­tant to your char­ac­ter.”

He ad­vised par­ents to nev­er let their chil­dren drop out of scouts and in­volve them in mar­tial arts. He re­mind­ed scouts that a plas­tic bot­tle takes 450 years to dis­in­te­grate.

Ear­li­er in the day, scouts, mem­bers of the Li­ons Club, Ro­tary Club, and Court Sham­rock par­tic­i­pat­ed in a street pa­rade from Har­ris Prom­e­nade to the head­quar­ters.