Minister of Sustainable Development Urges Action to Reduce Plastic Pollution

On the heels of World Environment Day being observed yesterday, the Minister of Sustainable Development, Orlando Habet, addressed the need for Belize to get serious about reducing plastic pollution.  According to Minister Habet, the plastic pollution situation has worsened and is now a topic on the global forefront.

Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development: “The United Nations Environment Program one year ago in Nairobi declared that it was time to look at a convention on global scale to look at the elimination of plastics but they’re looking at it from the approach of at the global stage but from the inception, from the production side until the final use. Most countries though are looking at the issue of single use plastics so like these chairs might be able to be recycled after they complete their use and put into a different type of use whether or not we’re going to make it into chips and incorporate it into road construction or into slabs. If you visit certain countries where plastic is now recycled I was walking on a pier which I thought was lumber you had these big 2×6, 2×8 and I thought I was walking on lumber when I realized it was all recycled plastics. So there is use for it.”

While efforts are being made to eliminate plastic pollution, Minister Orlando Habet, said that there are countries that are more concerned about the recycling business that rely on the use of plastics.

Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development: “We have countries that produce plastics and they are sold to other countries like others who are on the receiving end and so we are called through certain commitments to do recycling nad you might have heard the word a circular economy where you can now take certain types of plastics and do some recycling and reuse of course but if we do not address the production we will always be recycling. There are some countries who take it seriously and they don’t really want to get rid of the plastic because they have an industry of recycling and so I have been in meetings where I have to stand up against some of the larger countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Colombia and they have a recycling industry so that when we went to the meetings at the United Nations they took people from the Association of Recyclers and there was a lady who was representing in Colombia the Association of Indigenous Women who do Recycling. So they don’t want to get rid of it.”

Tune into our evening news as we tell you how plastic is now being found in humans to excessive plastic pollution.