Sha­had Ali

Se­nior Press Pass Cor­re­spon­dent

The three words above are the com­mon­ly re­peat­ed mantra when it comes to re­spect for the en­vi­ron­ment. Many say these words ar­bi­trar­i­ly and do not give much thought to the mean­ing of each word. Very of­ten they are used in­ter­change­ably as well, but each word owns up to a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent mean­ing. These sim­ple (but very im­por­tant) words are taught at the low­est lev­el of ed­u­ca­tion, but what is the prac­ti­cal ap­plic­a­bil­i­ty of these words as it re­lates to Trinidad and To­ba­go? Can we, as cit­i­zens of this coun­try, state that we prac­tice the three en­vi­ron­men­tal R's? Of the three, I can safe­ly say that Trinida­di­ans do reuse a lot. I think it's em­bed­ded in our cul­ture to reuse. The word sim­ply means to use again. It may seem sim­ple, but a plas­tic buck­et that is turned over and used as a seat in the back­yard of one's home is a prime ex­am­ple of reusing. The 'co­coyea' is one of the best or­gan­ic prod­ucts to reuse. In­stead of burn­ing dead branch­es of co­conut trees, the main veins of the stur­dy leaves are dried and made in­to brooms and oth­er craft items, in­clud­ing Car­ni­val cos­tumes. Even though we are fa­mous for reusing, we are not too keen on re­duc­ing. The word means to bring down as in amount or de­gree. With the ad­vent of Amer­i­can styled shop­ping, heavy pack­ag­ing is seen al­most every­where. In years gone by, peo­ple were ac­cus­tomed to get­ting veg­eta­bles in the mar­ket. To­day sweet pep­pers, toma­toes and let­tuce now come 'fresh­ly' packed and stored on re­frig­er­at­ed shelves for your con­ve­nience. The ex­ces­sive pack­ag­ing along with the en­er­gy from the re­frig­er­a­tor to keep to the prod­uct 'fresh' in­creas­es your car­bon foot­print and as such you in­di­rect­ly cause harm to the en­vi­ron­ment, by en­cour­ag­ing its in­dus­try.

En­er­gy and wa­ter al­so seem to be con­sumed ex­ces­sive­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go. While I do un­der­stand that there are peo­ple with­out a sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty and run­ning wa­ter in our coun­try, those who have the priv­i­lege abuse the re­sources. Our util­i­ties are sub­sidised and some­times the cost is es­ti­mat­ed for each house­hold. Trinida­di­ans com­plain more about their tele­phone as op­posed to their oth­er util­i­ty bills. If we had to pay more for such re­sources I am sure that we would not see the bla­tant wastage of these ameni­ties. Turn­ing off the lights when not in use can re­duce the amount of en­er­gy that you con­sume. En­sur­ing that taps are not leaky can pro­vide wa­ter to some­one else that tru­ly needs it. Every drop counts! Re­cy­cling seems to be at the bot­tom of the list, but there are a few com­pa­nies that ac­tu­al­ly cater for re­cy­cling of ma­te­ri­als in Trinidad and To­ba­go. These would in­clude Caribbean­Tech Dis­pos­als Lim­it­ed and Se­cure Re­cy­cling Lim­it­ed that pro­vide ser­vices for elec­tron­ic waste. Carib Glass Works has been re­cy­cling glass since its in­cep­tion in 1948, so it tru­ly is not un­com­mon to Trinidad and To­ba­go. Ac­cord­ing to its web­site, the com­pa­ny would be more than hap­py to work with oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions in start­ing their own glass re­cy­cling projects. There are ser­vices out there, but are tru­ly will­ing to re­cy­cle? The en­vi­ron­ment has been de­scribed as 'un­sta­ble' in many text­books, but the books al­so de­scribe many so­lu­tions and how we as in­di­vid­u­als can help save the plan­et. If each of us takes up that in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, there is no telling what we can all ac­com­plish to­geth­er once we get our acts to­geth­er. Re­mem­ber: Re­duce! Reuse! Re­cy­cle!