‘Go composting commercially’

Environmental advocate and entrepreneur Karen Meakins has suggested a commercial composting facility be set up and an ongoing aggressive education campaign on environmentally friendly products that have replaced plastics.

Commercial composting, she said, is the next natural step given that some products that were entering the market were not naturally compostable and people were continuing to litter.

“I am a very strong believer in the environment and it is important as a small island that we try and do the best that we can,” Meakins told Barbados TODAY in an interview on Wednesday.

She charged that some products listed as biodegradable that were entering the island were not compostable on their own, and this would still cause problems for landfills.

Since last year’s banning of plastic bags and polystyrene foam – commonly known under the trademark name, Styrofoam – several individuals have been importing plant-based products resembling plastics, some of which are made of polylactic acid (PLA), a form of plant starch.

But some environmentalists have argued that those products require a controlled composting facility to break them down in a reasonable period of time – three to six months – since, on their own, they biodegrade very slowly, taking as long as 100 to 1,000 years.

Meakins, who started Caribbean Ecoware Limited last year to offer a range of food containers and cutlery, said she was one of the companies early out the blocks to offer a bagasse-based product.

The products, which are made mainly from the sugarcane byproduct, are 100 per cent biodegradable, meaning that they are able to break down between 60 and 120 days on their own.

“A landfill is not the perfect place for things to breakdown because everything is compacted. That is the problem here,” she said.

“What we need to be working towards I think is a home recycling, separating at source. So you have all your plastic PLA and you separate them at home,” she added, acknowledging that it will be a major undertaking for Government to lead.

Meakins suggested that a public-private partnership could be formed for the introduction of an island-wide recycling project that would include the establishment of a composting facility.

She told Barbados TODAY: “Caribbean Ecoware would definitely be interested in working with Government to educate people and get some sort of recycling programme in place. It is really important for us especially living on an island where we only have a limited amount of space in our landfill. So if we can do better and divert a lot of stuff out of our landfill that would be really good.”

She touted the move as a potential job-creator.

Meakins promoted bagasse-based products such as the ones sold by her firm to help minimize the waste going to the landfill –  until the country set up a composting facility.

She said: “We as a nation aren’t very good when it comes to littering and that sort of thing. So what happens now is that you see these containers and they have ‘biodegradable’ stamped on the top of them and people think they can just throw them on the ground, throw them in the gullies and they are going to break down.

“But it is not going to happen, especially with the ones made of PLA because they require a specific facility to break down in and Barbados doesn’t have one of those as yet. I am hoping in the future that one will come.”

She said while a lot has been done over the years in terms of awareness, especially since the plastic ban took effect last year, there was still a lot of work ahead.

Meakins said she was thankful for the work that has been done so far between Government and the Barbados National Standards Institution, adding that standards were critical in stopping “any products from coming in that shouldn’t be coming in”.

“When the ban started, what was really good was that the Government was doing lots of ads on the radio. I think it is important that they continue that. It is just really educating people not to litter. Just because it says biodegradable doesn’t mean you can just throw it in the road,” she insisted.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb