Being an environmentalist in St. Maarten no doubt takes patience and determination – lots of it. The Nature Foundation (see Friday paper) has asked Parliament for an update on efforts to ban single-use plastics and Styrofoam food containers.
The elected representatives unanimously adopted a motion to ban plastic shopping bags in March 2012, already seven years ago. A member’s initiative bill to that effect was submitted in April 2013.
In 2017 the idea came to amend the General Police Ordinance instead, as a “less indirect” approach. A draft law that would accomplish this was sent to the Advice Council in August last year, but the public is yet to hear anything since then, except plans to also include plastic plates, cutlery, straws and cups as well as Styrofoam food containers.
The legislative process is usually a long one, but every day of delay means more harmful trash in nature, including the green hills, lagoons, beaches and sea that are such important ingredients of the island’s tourism economy. What’s more, these throw-away products greatly contribute to the Dutch side’s general waste management crisis with a landfill that reached its maximum capacity back in 2008.
Wherever this much-needed legislation is stuck, it should be released, completed and introduced sooner rather than later. What seems to be sorely missing is a justified and appropriate sense of urgency.
