SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad

@guardian.co.tt

The lat­est promise by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to in­sti­tute a ban on sty­ro­foam im­ports by Jan­u­ary 1, 2020, is a step back­wards, ac­cord­ing to en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist Stephen Broad­bridge who says the Gov­ern­ment has lost all cred­i­bil­i­ty as they con­tin­ue to pro­cras­ti­nate on en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues.

On Ju­ly 28, 2018, Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is an­nounced that a ban on sty­ro­foam would be en­forced in 2019. At that time, Robin­son-Reg­is said a ban on im­por­ta­tion of sty­ro­foam was due to start “al­most im­me­di­ate­ly” as it had been ap­proved by Cab­i­net two weeks be­fore.

Dur­ing his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion on Mon­day, Im­bert said the ban will come in­to ef­fect in Jan­u­ary 2020.

“They have no cred­i­bil­i­ty now. They can’t keep mak­ing promis­es and break­ing them and ex­pect peo­ple to be­lieve them,” Broad­bridge said.

“I’m not quite sure why they are lag­ging be­hind much of the rest of the world. Its been spo­ken about long enough, its now time to do some­thing. They are well be­hind sched­ule and they have pushed it back yet again.”

Broad­bridge said he has lost track of all the dif­fer­ent dates pro­posed by Gov­ern­ment for the ban. He said when­ev­er a ma­jor change is bandied about by po­lit­i­cal par­ties, it takes at least ten years be­fore that change is im­ple­ment­ed.

As for the ever-mov­ing goal­post of a sty­ro­foam black­out, Broad­bridge said con­sumers need to take mea­sures in­to their own hands. Sty­ro­foam is non-biodegrad­able, which means al­though it may break in­to tiny pieces, it does not break down com­plete­ly and it stays in the en­vi­ron­ment for hun­dreds of years.

“Con­sumers need to be­come more con­sci­en­tious buy­ers. If you go to a busi­ness place where every­thing is pack­aged in sty­ro­foam, go some­where else, do not sup­port that busi­ness. It is not just sty­ro­foam but plas­tics are well. It is a world prob­lem and Trinidad needs to do our part,” he said.

Broad­bridge, vice pres­i­dent of the T&T In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion, said he was dis­sat­is­fied with the bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion as there were no pro­vi­sions for tourism.

He said the gov­ern­ment seems to have no im­me­di­ate or fu­ture plans for the in­dus­try, which has been floun­der­ing for some time.