Steven Green­leaf

The na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is at a cru­cial point in its his­to­ry. So­cial, po­lit­i­cal and cul­tur­al change is in the air. Now is the time for the coun­try to take a new ap­proach to how it cares for the en­vi­ron­ment. The health of the na­tion's cit­i­zens, the health of the econ­o­my and the fu­ture prospects and op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able are all af­fect­ed by how pol­lu­tion is man­aged. Of­ten peo­ple fail to re­alise the ef­fects of pol­lu­tion on their lives un­til it is too late.

Chem­i­cals which we re­lease in­to the en­vi­ron­ment fre­quent­ly end up in our bod­ies, or our chil­dren's bod­ies, some­times be­fore they have even left the womb. Many chem­i­cals known to cause can­cer or oth­er pro­found health prob­lems are known to "bioac­cu­mu­late," mean­ing that they ac­cu­mu­late and con­cen­trate in an or­gan­ism. Bioac­cu­mu­la­tion com­bines with an­oth­er phe­nom­e­non called "bio­mag­ni­fi­ca­tion," where­by cer­tain sub­stances such as pes­ti­cides or heavy met­als work their way in­to wa­ter we drink or use to raise crops, move up the food chain, and then in­to the things we eat.

These tox­ic sub­stances be­come more and more con­cen­trat­ed as they move through the en­vi­ron­ment and make their way to our bod­ies. What this means is that as we go through our dai­ly lives, we are dan­ger­ous­ly un­aware that the small amounts of waste we leave be­hind, chem­i­cals we use, and pol­lu­tion we cre­ate are in­vis­i­bly com­ing back to haunt us. Thou­sands of small, seem­ing­ly harm­less sources of pol­lu­tion are ac­tu­al­ly af­fect­ing us in ways we can­not pre­dict.

When we dump waste, house­hold trash which may con­tain a va­ri­ety of chem­i­cal residues, or oil, in­to a drain, when we fail to prop­er­ly con­trol and han­dle the chem­i­cals used in our man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es, when we use waste treat­ment fa­cil­i­ties that are not func­tion­ing prop­er­ly, and when our land­fills are leak­ing, we are putting our­selves, the fu­ture of the na­tion, and the health of chil­dren who have not even been born yet, at risk. There are ex­treme costs to be reck­oned with. The health sys­tem in the na­tion is al­ready func­tion­ing poor­ly. The Caribbean re­gion leads the world in lifestyle dis­eases–non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases such as di­a­betes and hy­per­ten­sion. How wise is it to risk adding ris­ing rates of can­cer and birth de­fects to the mix?

The eco­nom­ic im­pacts of pol­lu­tion are of­ten sub­tle. They may take years to make them­selves felt. Many na­tions have been through ex­pen­sive clean-up cam­paigns that have put a strain on their economies and their in­dus­tries. Now com­pa­nies the world over are dis­cov­er­ing that be­ing bet­ter cor­po­rate cit­i­zens and tak­ing bet­ter care of the en­vi­ron­ment is mak­ing them far more prof­itable than they had been. T&T is look­ing for ways to di­ver­si­fy its econ­o­my, but it is im­por­tant to know that many for­eign com­pa­nies who may con­sid­er in­vest­ing in T&T have claus­es in their cor­po­rate char­ters which spec­i­fy that they not do busi­ness with firms or ju­ris­dic­tions who are not good stew­ards of the en­vi­ron­ment.

There­fore by not tak­ing suf­fi­cient care of the en­vi­ron­ment we are lim­it­ing our fu­ture eco­nom­ic pos­si­bil­i­ties as well. The good news is that there is a new lev­el of con­cern in air. Peo­ple are talk­ing about new ways, new so­lu­tions and new be­hav­iour, in­clud­ing at the high­est lev­els of gov­ern­ment. Now is the time to put this en­er­gy to use and take ac­tion. The en­vi­ron­men­tal prob­lems fac­ing the na­tion are solv­able. Best man­age­ment prac­tices al­ready ex­ist; proven meth­ods for clean­ing up mess­es. A bril­liant man named Rober­to Var­gas, a com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­is­er and so­cial ac­tivist, once told me, "A lot of bad things may be hap­pen­ing, but the good news is that there is the op­por­tu­ni­ty for every­one to be a hero."�