Nature lovers will have been glad to read in Thursday’s paper that an initiative law proposal from Parliament President Sarah Wescot-Williams to ban single-use plastic bags in St. Maarten is ready for handing by the legislature. Some might understandably be sceptical, because – as recently pointed out in this column – the first joint motion giving government 120 days to present a draft ordinance regulating this matter was adopted unanimously in March 2012.
Then submitters Frans Richardson and the late Janchie Leonard produced a law initiative of their own one year later, but this reportedly never made it past the Council of Advice. Wescot-Williams launched the idea to make a prohibition part of the General Police Ordinance in September 2016.
After two years it now appears the latter will become reality, but once in Parliament the draft must be forwarded to the Council of Advice for its comments that require a response from the initiator. It then goes to the Central Committee followed by a Plenary Session for approval, but the Council of Minsters is still to co-sign the document before the mandatory review by the Ombudsman of up to six weeks.
Even if all goes well, it’s going to take some time before this process can be completed. Meanwhile, businesses shouldn’t wait for any law to do what they already know is right.
Some local supermarkets have stopped giving out non-biodegradable bags, but most are yet to do so. In the US, grocery chain Kroger just announced plans to phase them out by 2025 for its entire family of stores.
Additional companies ought to be joining the ranks of environmentally-responsible good corporate citizens. Customers who forget to bring their own reusable shopping bags and are thus often forced to purchase a paper one may not all be happy in the beginning, but experience elsewhere has shown they soon get used to it.
And people could always opt to use the plastic bags at least twice; for example, to buy groceries and later again for their household garbage, eliminating the need for and the expense of purchasing – also plastic – separate garbage bags. This will likely require taking more bags to the dumpster because of the usual difference in size, but that’s a small price to pay.
