Akash Sama­roo

As the Gov­ern­ment aims to bring the Bev­er­age Con­tain­er Bill be­fore Par­lia­ment by year’s end, the ANSA McAL Group of Com­pa­nies stands ready to do its part to pre­serve this coun­try’s en­vi­ron­men­tal fu­ture.

“I think it’s so im­por­tant for us and our fu­ture gen­er­a­tions to be able to have a sus­tain­able sys­tem, econ­o­my and en­vi­ron­ment, we are very much heart­ened and very much look­ing for­ward to this fi­nal­ly com­ing in­to act,” said the Group’s Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) An­tho­ny N Sab­ga III.

Line min­is­ter for the bill, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Mar­vin Gon­za­les said he was heart­ened to have the sup­port of ANSA McAL and gave Guardian Me­dia an up­date on the bill’s progress.

He said, “We held en­gage­ments with the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors and we in­vit­ed writ­ten sub­mis­sions, we are cur­rent­ly re­view­ing the writ­ten sub­mis­sions of the pri­vate sec­tor and per­haps in the next two weeks or so we will com­plete our re­view, com­plete the draft Bill and the pol­i­cy and I’m ex­pect­ing to go to Cab­i­net ear­ly next month and once that is ap­proved we can fi­nalise the bill and go to Par­lia­ment be­fore the end of this year.”

The bill aims to de­vel­op a de­posit and re­fund sys­tem for pre­scribed sizes of bev­er­age con­tain­ers and a regime for the col­lec­tion of bev­er­age con­tain­ers to re­duce their dis­pos­al in­to the en­vi­ron­ment.

David Hadeed, the Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Carib Glass­works Lim­it­ed, said the com­pa­ny al­ready has a head start in that re­gard.

“We are for­tu­nate to have over half a cen­tu­ry worth of re­cy­cling and reusing of con­tain­ers through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Gov­ern­ment was very open as to what it en­tails to do that and the mech­a­nisms and the foot­print that is need­ed to ex­pand it be­yond what we cur­rent­ly do,” he said.

Man­u­fac­tur­ers will be mon­i­tored close­ly if the bill be­comes law as its draft speaks to fines for un­col­lect­ed re­turns and im­prop­er dis­pos­al of bot­tles, but Hadeed said he is not wor­ried as the rules in the pro­posed law are clear on how those penal­ties could be avoid­ed.

Mean­while, Frances Bain-Cum­ber­batch, the Group’s Chief Le­gal and Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Of­fi­cer said she was not on­ly pleased with the lev­el of con­sul­ta­tion with the Gov­ern­ment but al­so anx­ious for it to be­come law.

“ANSA McAL is in 100 per cent sup­port of this ini­tia­tive, we have cer­tain­ly been in con­tact for many years with the Gov­ern­ment to make this hap­pen, we think it’s the best thing for the en­vi­ron­ment and this is a sig­nif­i­cant step that we can take.”

CEO An­tho­ny N Sab­ga III added that this has been a key item on the com­pa­ny’s agen­da.

“In­ci­den­tal­ly we here at ANSA McAL are plan­ning our fu­ture and our sus­tain­abil­i­ty and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty agen­da is form­ing a ma­jor part of it,” he said.

Gon­za­les said he was dis­pleased with the bill’s word­ing on as­sum­ing his Pub­lic Util­i­ties port­fo­lio.

Gon­za­les said in its pre­vi­ous state the bill dis­en­fran­chised small busi­ness­es and there­fore it was in­te­gral to go back to the draw­ing board.

“We have to make it as easy and sim­ple as pos­si­ble to get all stake­hold­ers in the val­ue chain to take part in this, we want for small busi­ness­es to set up their own col­lec­tion regime with­in their com­mu­ni­ties,” he said.

Gon­za­les said he is thrilled to know he has the sup­port of the ANSA McAL Group of Com­pa­nies in this re­gard.

He said, “I’m very com­fort­able with what we have right now and I am very com­fort­able that key stake­hold­ers like Carib Glass­works and ANSA McAL are very sup­port­ive of it and now we are clos­er to this hap­pen­ing once and for all.”