SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

T&T dis­cards 26,000 tonnes of PET (poly­eth­yl­ene tereph­tha­late) plas­tic con­tain­ers a year, which is enough to start a lo­cal plas­tic re­cy­cling fa­cil­i­ty.

The bulk of these plas­tics, which en­ter the coun­try’s three land­fills at Beetham, For­res Park and Gua­napo, are sin­gle-use bot­tles.

Plas­tic pol­lu­tion has be­come a silent men­ace and pos­es a big threat to the en­vi­ron­ment and hu­man health.

Glob­al cal­cu­la­tions in­di­cate that the world will have 7.8 bil­lion tonnes of plas­tic by 2015- this is equiv­a­lent to more than one tonne of plas­tic for every per­son liv­ing to­day.

Last year, a re­port by the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) on Sus­tain­able Plas­tic Waste Man­age­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go iden­ti­fied this coun­try as the sixth-high­est plas­tic pol­luter in the Caribbean.

The 36-page re­port al­so ranked T&T fifth in the world “for per capi­ta pro­duc­tion of mis­man­aged waste.”

It point­ed out that the pro­posed Bev­er­age Con­tain­er Bill, draft­ed over two decades ago, has not be­come law due to a lack of po­lit­i­cal will to im­ple­ment the leg­is­la­tion.

The re­port stat­ed there was al­so a need for a com­pre­hen­sive pol­i­cy frame­work for re­cy­cling lo­cal­ly.

In Jan­u­ary, re­searchers from Colom­bia Uni­ver­si­ty de­vel­oped an imag­ing tech­nique that de­tect­ed thou­sands of tiny bits of plas­tics in sin­gle-use bot­tles of wa­ter known as mi­croplas­tics.

Mi­croplas­tics can fur­ther break down in­to nanoplas­tics over time. Nanoplas­tics are not vis­i­ble to the naked eye and are small enough to en­ter the body’s cells and tis­sues.

The re­search found a typ­i­cal one-litre bot­tle of wa­ter con­tained some 240,000 plas­tic frag­ments on av­er­age.

Pre­vi­ous re­search found ev­i­dence of plas­tic par­ti­cles in hu­man blood, lungs, gut, fae­ces and re­pro­duc­tive tis­sues like the pla­cen­ta and testes.

While the health ef­fects of these tiny pieces of plas­tic are still un­proven and un­known, a Jan­u­ary 2022 re­port pub­lished by the US gov­ern­ment’s Na­tion­al Cen­ter for Biotech­nol­o­gy In­for­ma­tion states: “PET plas­tic oc­curs in ground­wa­ter, drink­ing wa­ter, soils and sed­i­ments. Plas­tic up­take by hu­mans in­duces dis­eases such as re­duc­ing mi­gra­tion and pro­lif­er­a­tion of hu­man mes­enchy­mal stem cells of bone mar­row and en­dothe­lial prog­en­i­tor cells. Poly­eth­yl­ene tereph­tha­late can be de­grad­ed by phys­i­cal, chem­i­cal and bi­o­log­i­cal method.”

Apart from en­dan­ger­ing fish, ma­rine birds and tur­tles, plas­tic waste al­so af­fects the coun­try’s aes­thet­ic and con­tributes to se­vere flood­ing when im­prop­er­ly dis­posed.

Sun­day Busi­ness reached out to three State agen­cies: the Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (SWM­COL), the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA) and the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) on their po­si­tion on mi­croplas­tics and how they have been treat­ing the mat­ter in light of this lat­est de­vel­op­ments.

SWM­COL

Chair­man of SWM­COL, Ronald Mil­ford de­scribed mi­croplas­tics as a wor­ry­ing con­cern world­wide, stat­ing that leg­is­la­tion is need­ed for the re­cy­cling of plas­tics and to pre­vent lit­ter­ing.

This can on­ly hap­pen when the pro­posed Bev­er­age Con­tain­er Bill be­comes law, Mil­ford said.

The bill which seeks to pro­vide a de­posit and re­fund sys­tem for pre­scribed sizes of bev­er­age con­tain­ers and a col­lec­tion regime for bev­er­age con­tain­ers to re­duce their dis­pos­al in­to the en­vi­ron­ment is be­fore the Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pose Com­mit­tee and is await­ing Cab­i­net’s ap­proval.

It al­so in­cor­po­rates fis­cal mea­sures to en­cour­age the use and re­cy­cling of bev­er­age con­tain­ers.

“I am hop­ing in the next two to three weeks, we will hear from them (the Gov­ern­ment). Once the news is pos­i­tive it would go to Cab­i­net for ap­proval and then the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for the de­sign of the act.”

Mil­ford said the bill would tack­le some of the ma­jor en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues fac­ing our coun­try and clamp down on the flip­pant dis­pos­al of bev­er­age con­tain­ers, main­ly wa­ter bot­tles.

“It’s im­por­tant that we get this bill ap­proved. The bill will not please every­one but it’s a start.”

SWM­COL falls un­der the am­bit of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les, the line min­is­ter for the bill.

Gon­za­les said peo­ple who lit­ter would feel it in their pock­ets.

“I can as­sure you the penal­ties will cer­tain­ly be in­creased. If you lit­ter, you are go­ing to feel it in your pock­et. There will be con­se­quences to peo­ple’s ac­tions. Once the penal­ty is stiff it would serve as a de­ter­rent.”

The cur­rent fine for lit­ter­ing is $4,000 or six months im­pris­on­ment.

Gon­za­les al­so dis­closed that house­holds would be re­quired to sep­a­rate their waste.

Once the bill be­comes law, Mil­ford said, the Beetham and Gua­napo land­fills will be trans­formed in­to ma­te­r­i­al re­cov­ery fa­cil­i­ties while For­res Park will serve as the coun­try’s main land­fill.

This move would sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce SWM­COL’s op­er­at­ing costs.

The Gov­ern­ment pro­vides SWM­COL with an an­nu­al sub­ven­tion of $90 mil­lion. Of the 800,000 tonnes of garbage that en­ter the land­fills an­nu­al­ly, Mil­ford said at least 80 per cent can be re­cy­cled.

The UNDP re­port quot­ed T&T as dump­ing 26,000 tonnes of PET plas­tic con­tain­ers year­ly, stat­ing that this vol­ume of dis­card­ed plas­tics was suf­fi­cient to build a plas­tic re­cy­cling plant. PET can­not read­i­ly de­com­pose or biode­grade. Such dis­pos­al, Mil­ford said, can­not con­tin­ue.

Mil­ford said the lev­el of plas­tics that en­ter the land­fills has been as­tro­nom­i­cal.

“Our land­fills are way past their end of life. We are strug­gling at Gua­napo right now. We are run­ning out of space,”

He said some bev­er­age com­pa­nies have been us­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly plas­tics “that can break down eas­i­er than nor­mal plas­tics.”

These com­pa­nies, he said, are con­cerned about the im­pact their busi­ness­es have on the en­vi­ron­ment.

Last year, SWM­COL processed 441 tonnes of re­cy­clable ma­te­ri­als of which 45 per cent were PET.

Since its in­cep­tion in 2015, the com­pa­ny has processed 3,000 tonnes of re­cy­clable ma­te­ri­als.

The plas­tics are sort­ed ac­cord­ing to their types and colours.

EMA

EMA’s as­sis­tant man­ag­er of tech­ni­cal ser­vices, Vid­jaya Ramkha­lawan, said lim­it­ed stud­ies have been done na­tion­al­ly on mi­croplas­tics.

“The EMA wel­comes col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er en­ti­ties to col­lab­o­rate on this is­sue.”

She said un­der the Na­tion­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy 2018, the Gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed to man­age all sol­id and haz­ardous wastes, which in­clude ma­rine lit­ter and mi­croplas­tics.

Ramkha­lawan said while the EMA has not con­duct­ed any stud­ies on mi­croplas­tics it is cur­rent­ly de­vel­op­ing ca­pac­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate and mon­i­tor, giv­en that this is­sue is now an emerg­ing con­cern.

“Cor­re­la­tion was found be­tween mi­croplas­tics and the tox­i­c­i­ty in the food chain. So un­til we in Trinidad and To­ba­go can es­tab­lish na­tion­al­ly where we are at in terms of nanoplas­tics and mi­croplas­tics, it’s a lit­tle dif­fi­cult for us to say what the po­ten­tial im­pacts are...how se­vere the im­pacts are in our na­tion­al cir­cum­stance in terms of hu­man health and the en­vi­ron­ment,” Ramkha­lawan said.

She said be­cause nano plas­tics are ubiq­ui­tous “the type of test­ing is re­quired and is still on­go­ing that may take a bit of time be­fore we can ac­tu­al­ly get a prop­er na­tion­al cir­cum­stances.”

Wayne Ra­jku­mar, EMA’s tech­ni­cal ser­vices man­ag­er said the imag­ing tech­nique de­vel­oped by Colom­bia re­searchers picked up nanoplas­tics in drink­ing wa­ter.

It al­so re­vealed that peo­ple were more ex­posed to drink­ing bot­tled wa­ter than tap wa­ter.

Ra­jku­mar said the EMA came across a 2016 study on mi­croplas­tics un­der­tak­en at Mara­cas Bay by lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al re­searchers.

Tests were con­duct­ed on dis­card­ed bot­tles along the shore­line, which was a first for T&T.

A 2022 re­port com­ing out of that ex­er­cise, Ra­jku­mar said, found mi­croplas­tics in PET bot­tles which are lit­tered all over the coun­try.

The re­port rec­om­mend­ed that more stud­ies should be con­duct­ed.

With mi­croplas­tics and nanoplas­tics gain­ing in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion, Ra­jku­mar said the au­thor­i­ty must build ca­pac­i­ty.

He said in­vest­ments were need­ed for analy­sis and test­ing.

The UNDP re­port stat­ed there was lit­tle in­vest­ment in re­search and de­vel­op­ment of plas­tic al­ter­na­tives in T&T.

“So you need to get the funds to do the re­search. Once it (mi­croplas­tics) is in the en­vi­ron­ment it would get in­to the food chain. We know it is present in the en­vi­ron­ment but what is the im­pact? The ju­ry is still out with what are the like­ly im­pacts,” Ra­jku­mar said.

IMA

An­na Lisa Arlen-Ben­jamin, IMA’s project man­ag­er, said sin­gle-use bot­tles have been T&T’s high­est waste stream due to our high con­sump­tion and pro­duc­tion rates.

These bot­tles were iden­ti­fied as a ma­jor threat to the en­vi­ron­ment.

She said waste sep­a­ra­tion was crit­i­cal and ur­gent­ly need­ed.

“You can­not re­cy­cle, re­cov­er and re-man­u­fac­ture items you have not sep­a­rat­ed.”

An­oth­er is­sue is that T&T does not have a PET re­cy­cling plant.

“That is part of the chal­lenge. You must have a plant that is cor­rect­ly de­signed.”

Busi­ness­es are now look­ing at ways to treat this at a Caribbean lev­el, Arlen-Ben­jamin said.

She said or­gan­i­sa­tions and busi­ness groups can start tap­ping in­to the Green Fund to achieve T&T’s en­vi­ron­men­tal agen­da.

As of Sep­tem­ber 2020, the fund stood at $7.6 bil­lion.

All pri­vate sec­tor en­ti­ties that gen­er­ate rev­enue in T&T are re­quired to pay a levy of 0.03 per cent on their gross in­come on the Green Fund.

Since the fund be­came op­er­a­tional in 2008, on­ly $400 mil­lion has been spent on sus­tain­able projects so far,

Arlen-Ben­jamin said in 2015, the EMA be­gan its iCare pro­gramme where 660 bins were placed in pub­lic spaces and schools for cit­i­zens to change their lifestyle in the way they dis­pose of plas­tics.

That ini­tia­tive has led to the col­lec­tion of 6,000 tonnes of plas­tic.

Arlen-Ben­jamin point­ed out that T&T us­es sev­en types of plas­tics which range from high-den­si­ty poly­ethene (HDPE), PVC, low-den­si­ty poly­ethene, poly­styrene, polypropy­lene in­clud­ing acrylic, ny­lon and fi­bre­glass that would re­quire dif­fer­ent process­es for it to be reused.

She said the T&T Bu­reau of Stan­dards en­sures stan­dards are main­tained on the im­por­ta­tion of plas­tics, while plas­tics pro­duced in T&T must meet qual­i­ty as­sur­ance and con­trol for ex­por­ta­tion.

Wendy Nel­son IMA’s se­nior re­search of­fi­cer in the en­vi­ron­men­tal qual­i­ty pro­gramme said the in­sti­tute has nev­er con­duct­ed mi­croplas­tic re­search.

In 2017, she said the or­gan­i­sa­tion teamed up with the EMA to test the lev­el of plas­tics in bot­tles on a few beach­es.

“We are cur­rent­ly re­ceiv­ing equip­ment, train­ing and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing in all these new fields that we have not been tra­di­tion­al­ly in­volved in.”

She said test­ing of mi­croplas­tics would be a new av­enue for the EMA but could not give a time frame as to when this would be un­der­tak­en.

Last month, the Sun­day Guardian emailed Blue Wa­ters man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Do­minic Hadeed and SM Jaleel and Com­pa­ny Ltd re­gard­ing the re­searchers’ dis­cov­ery and their re­sponse to the mat­ter.

How­ev­er, both com­pa­nies which pro­duce and sell bot­tled wa­ter failed to re­spond.

A What­sApp mes­sage was al­so for­ward­ed to T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Roger Roach who said he was out of the coun­try.

Box

What the UNDP re­port rec­om­mend­ed:

* Im­ple­ment a na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness pro­gramme in­volv­ing a change in per­cep­tion of plas­tic waste to raw ma­te­ri­als to ad­dress the over­con­sump­tion be­hav­iour of cit­i­zens;

* Leg­is­la­tion should en­shrine that those who pro­duce pol­lu­tion should bear the cost of man­ag­ing it to pre­vent dam­age to hu­man health or the en­vi­ron­ment; and

* Plas­tic pro­duc­ers, es­pe­cial­ly sin­gle-use plas­tic gen­er­a­tors should be held ac­count­able, there­by shift­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty from con­sumer to pro­duc­er.