En­vi­ron­men­tal­ists re­joiced when Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounced in his 2020 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion on Oc­to­ber 7, that Gov­ern­ment will ban the use of Sty­ro­foam food con­tain­ers from Jan­u­ary 1, 2020.

The date had been pushed for­ward sev­er­al times since Ju­ly 28, 2018, when Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is an­nounced that a ban on sty­ro­foam would be en­forced in 2019.

There is a dark side to the green prod­ucts, how­ev­er.

Ten days af­ter the Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos in­sti­tut­ed a ban on sin­gle-use plas­tics from Ju­ly 1, 2019, Min­is­ter of Small Busi­ness, En­tre­pre­neur­ship and Com­merce Dwight Suther­land re­vealed that a num­ber of the re­place­ment prod­ucts en­ter­ing in­to the coun­try test­ed pos­i­tive for high lev­els of flu­o­rine.

Ac­cord­ing to the Eu­ro­pean Con­sumer Or­gan­i­sa­tion, prod­ucts made from the chem­i­cal per­sist in the en­vi­ron­ment, and some ac­cu­mu­late in the body.

The sus­pect­ed im­pact on hu­man health ranged from an in­creased risk of mis­car­riage to a neg­a­tive in­flu­ence on the im­mune sys­tem.

In Sep­tem­ber, Star­lite Phar­ma­cy post­ed on its Face­book site that it was re­turn­ing to the use of plas­tic con­tain­ers: “Dear Cus­tomer, we are sor­ry to be serv­ing you our Star­lite meals to go in plas­tic con­tain­ers again. We had prob­lems with some of the chem­i­cals used in our com­postable pack­ag­ing and de­cid­ed it was best to look for a chem­i­cal-free op­tion. Rest as­sured we are work­ing dili­gent­ly on this process and are sor­ry for the in­con­ve­nience. We do ad­vise wash­ing the plas­tic and re­cy­cling it if pos­si­ble. Best re­gards, Ger­ald Aboud—man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Star­lite Group Lim­it­ed.”

Busi­ness­man Bar­ry Fakoory, sales man­ag­er VF Pack­ag­ing Lim­it­ed, a plas­tics con­tain­er man­u­fac­tur­er for the pack­ag­ing in­dus­try (who does not sell sty­ro­foam) said how­ev­er, com­postable pack­ag­ing was be­ing tout­ed as a re­place­ment for sty­ro­foam in T&T, but re­quired more re­sources to be made and dis­posed of af­ter one use and there were no in­dus­tri­al com­post­ing fa­cil­i­ties in the coun­try, so the items end up in land­fills.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, Fakoory said, “I do not be­lieve the coun­try is ready for a sty­ro­foam ban to be im­ple­ment­ed. Im­port­ed sty­ro­foam ac­counts for some­where be­tween 70 to 80 per cent of the sty­ro­foam be­ing used in T&T.

“This leaves sup­pli­ers ba­si­cal­ly less than three months to place or­ders for al­ter­na­tive prod­ucts and more im­por­tant­ly get ac­cess to a larg­er sum of for­eign ex­change than they would have pre­vi­ous­ly need­ed, as the al­ter­na­tive prod­ucts are more cost­ly.”

Fakoory added, “It is hard to tell how large an im­pact it will have with the down­stream users like cater­ers and the restau­rants, but there can quite pos­si­bly be a short­age of food pack­ag­ing on the mar­ket for the first few months next year. It is al­so pos­si­ble that se­lect­ed im­porters may have been aware of what was tak­ing place and have al­ready placed or­ders for al­ter­na­tive food pack­ag­ing.”

He said he had been try­ing to get an up­date and a meet­ing to dis­cuss the im­pend­ing ban with the Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­istry since De­cem­ber 2018 but had not been suc­cess­ful. Fakoory said if man­u­fac­tur­ers were kept in the loop, they may have been able to as­sist in meet­ing some of the short­falls with prod­ucts that were ei­ther con­sid­ered com­postable or re­cy­clable.

He said he would al­so ex­pect to see quite a bit more pa­per­board food pack­ag­ing on the mar­ket as this prod­uct would be the most fea­si­ble op­tion for busi­ness­es mov­ing away from sty­ro­foam pack­ag­ing.

Fakoory said if pa­per­board be­came the ma­te­r­i­al of choice which he be­lieved it will be, he did not see a ma­jor in­crease in the cost of food as this prod­uct was not much more ex­pen­sive than sty­ro­foam.

When asked whether some of the biodegrad­able and com­postable pack­ag­ing prod­ucts had a can­cer link, he said bagasse (sug­ar cane) prod­ucts en­ter­ing the T&T mar­ket con­tained chem­i­cals linked to can­cer and oth­er is­sues.

Fakoory said the com­pa­ny had cer­ti­fied sev­er­al com­postable prod­ucts sent to two sep­a­rate labs this year and the pre­vi­ous year and both labs con­firmed this.

He said these chem­i­cals Per- and poly­flu­o­roalkyl sub­stances (PFAS) were al­so clas­si­fied as a Per­sis­tent Or­gan­ic Pol­lu­tant and T&T signed the Stock­holm Agree­ment which calls for the elim­i­na­tion of these chem­i­cals.

Fakoory said, un­for­tu­nate­ly, these prod­ucts were not gen­uine­ly green, biodegrad­able or en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly as sup­pli­ers claimed they were.

He said he was say­ing this as a man­u­fac­tur­er who due to mar­ket de­mands had in­vest­ed in the man­u­fac­tur­ing of some of these prod­ucts, but with­out the tox­ic chem­i­cals.

Fakoory said the Gov­ern­ment need­ed to show gen­uine in­ter­est in im­ple­ment­ing waste man­age­ment strate­gies and stressed that it sim­ply can­not be “putting plas­ters on bul­let wounds hop­ing for brown­ie points.”

He said if that did not hap­pen this time, the na­tion’s streets, drains and rivers would be pol­lut­ed with these re­place­ment prod­ucts by next year.

Fakoory said what was al­so need­ed to be ad­dressed was the false pro­mo­tion of prod­ucts that were bio-based as these prod­ucts were, in re­al­i­ty, high-end sty­ro­foam that can­not be re­cy­cled or com­post­ed. He said a halt to the im­por­ta­tion of food pack­ag­ing con­tain­ing harm­ful and tox­ic chem­i­cals en­ter­ing the coun­try was al­so need­ed.

Mean­while, Ger­ald Aboud, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Star­lite Group Lim­it­ed said on Fri­day his de­ci­sion to re­turn to sin­gle-use plas­tic was be­cause of the per­flu­o­ro­car­bons PFCs that were used as a non-stick ad­dic­tive in the com­postable ma­te­ri­als.

Per­flu­o­ro­car­bons are chem­i­cals close­ly re­lat­ed to PFASs (per-and poly­flu­o­roalkyl sub­stances) that share com­mon fea­tures, they both con­tain flu­o­rine and car­bon atoms and are used abun­dant­ly in com­mon house­hold items to make ob­jects wa­ter or fire-re­sis­tant.

PFCs and PFASs are used in food con­tain­ers and wrap­pers for their wa­ter, grease-proof­ing, and stain-re­pel­lent prop­er­ties.

He said the re­al­i­ty was that they didn’t have enough in­for­ma­tion about the cu­mu­la­tive ef­fect of PFCs and oth­er chem­i­cals have on the hu­man body.

Aboud said the chem­i­cals were in some of the pack­ag­ing for take­away meals, peo­ple con­sumed food out of the pack­ag­ing con­tain­ers every day, and meats or pro­duce were wrapped in the ma­te­r­i­al and the com­pa­ny de­cid­ed to err on the side of cau­tion.

He said the good news was com­pa­nies his group worked with were look­ing to­wards a PFC-free op­tion which will hope­ful­ly be avail­able in the near fu­ture.

Aboud has urged the Gov­ern­ment should take a look at how these chem­i­cals and ad­di­tives were al­lowed in­to the coun­try.