Waste separation law coming – Minister

Households and businesses could soon be made by law to separate their garbage at source, with details on how this would be done to be revealed sometime next year, Minister of the Environment and National Beautification Trevor Prescod suggested in Parliament today.

But Prescod gave an assurance that mandatory separation of garbage would not happen overnight and that Government would be very careful in its approach.

The Environment Minister made the suggestion after Minister of Tourism Kerrie Symmonds declared that recycling would have to play a major role in waste management and environmental protection.

The lawmakers were debating changes to the 27-year-old Returnable Containers Act, to expand the kinds of items that could be returned to be recycled beyond beverage containers, to include containers, a refund for those containers and other reusable and recyclable items.

Under the new schedule to the Act passed in the House of Assembly today, glass beverage bottles will attract a refund value of 15 cents; polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, and high density polyethylene and low density polyethylene over one litre, ten cents; and high density polyethylene and low density polyethylene under one litre, other glass containers, other non-glass containers and aluminium cans will fetch five cents each.

Since 1992, the law provided for only glass and PET plastic bottles to be returned for a refund, providing a small income to some Barbadians who separate the bottles from the waste stream.

The new bill now defines a container as “a separate, sealed glass, metal, aluminium, steel or plastic bottle, can jar, carton or other receptacle which may consist of other materials that are recyclable or reusable and is capable of holding 3.8 litres or less”.

Prescod said: “A level of order is required, but the law can only be applied if the state do what it is supposed to do in preparing itself to put mandatory statutory provisions in place that will coerce persons into responding to the changes that we need.

“We cannot wait for the changes to gradually come into place, but we still cannot revolutionize things overnight into a society which is accustomed to a conservative way of life and in some cases believe what they are doing is correct and ought to be done so until the coming of the Lord.

“We have to be careful how we move. We have to make sure If we make anything a must the state also honour its part and the duties that are expected of us.

“That is going to also call for intensive public education.”

The Tourism Minister argued that it was difficult to get Barbadians to recycle their waste because they saw it as “a matter of discretion and that you leave it to the goodwill of some folks in one part of the country, in some primary school or some other place of learning”.

Symmonds said: “It is my view that if we are going to do this business of management of our environment sensibly and well then we have to come to the point where we determine at this level, and perhaps in this place by law, that there has to be a process of recycling, and that process of recycling must touch every Barbadian citizen and visitors to our shore.”

The St James Central MP acknowledged that for Government to mandate recycling, certain mechanisms would have to be put in place including getting specific trucks to collect specific types of waste.

Suggesting that it would require cultural change and every household to have the appropriate containers, Prescod said the change would also require careful study at the landfill to find out what mechanisms were needed to be put in place there too for the different types of waste when they arrive there separated.

“Hopefully by next year we should be in a position to give greater clarity on how we are going to apply the concept of separation of waste at source,” said Prescod.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb