Guyana moves 1 step closer to banning plastic bags

As the country progresses towards achieving the goal of a green state, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Guyana will be partnering with supermarkets in Georgetown to minimise the use of plastic bags, as part of Earth Day 2018.
The statement was made to Guyana Times by the Director within Technical Secretariat, Sharifah Razack on Wednesday.

Razack said, “It all stems from the international theme for Earth Day, where it is about reducing the use of plastic, and that is not the only reason, we are doing this for several other reasons”.
So far, the Director noted that six major supermarkets in Georgetown, as well as their subsidiaries, have expressed their willingness to participate in the drive to reduce the usage of plastic bags.
Those supermarkets include Bounty, Mathai, Survival, Budget, Distribution Services Limited (DSL) and Massy.
These supermarkets will use boxes, reusable bags and biodegradable bags to pack their customers’ goods. They are also urging persons to walk with their bags, so as to curb the plastic situation in Guyana.

Candacie Thompson, Senior Environmental Officer, EPA, later explained that the initiative will officially get started on World Earth Day, slated for April 22. She said, “We are looking at it as a launching pad and to raise awareness on the consequences of plastic pollution… many people are so accustomed to using these ‘single use’ plastic bags and basically like the name suggests, you can’t get much use out of it. When you take stuff away from the supermarkets in it, it cannot be reused except for garbage and it ends up in these landfills and accumulates because they are not biodegradable”.
Thompson noted that the engagement with these supermarkets is just one of the activities being done for Earth Day. It is being done, according to her, “to see how the initiative goes to get a feedback as we seek to change persons’ attitude to the use of plastic”.
She said too that the EPA may consider taking the use of plastic bags to a governmental level, based on the public’s response to this initiative and after the necessary sensitisation methods would have been conducted to alert the public on the dangers of plastic bag use.
The implementation of this new initiative comes at a time when Guyana happens to be one of the countries in the Caribbean that is mostly affected by plastic pollutants.
Over the years, plastic articles, specifically plastic bags have been the reason for clogged drains, trenches and canals and often times result in flooding.
The Government of Guyana took the decision to place a ban on styrofoam back in 2016, after much contention.
Earth Day is a global event which sees the participation of approximately one billion people. It is being held this year under the theme ‘End Plastic Pollution’.
The EPA of Guyana will be endorsing this message as they strive to end this type of pollution that undoubtedly plays a role as a major pollutant in Guyana.
World Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970 in the United States. It later became recognised and accepted Worldwide by the year 1990. It sees the participation of 192 countries.
According to the organisers of World Earth Day, at least two million people die globally, due to indoor and outdoor pollution. It also estimates that by the year 2030, food prices will go up by 50 per cent due to climate change.
The rising temperature, global warming and other ecological imbalances are due to the fact that half of the world’s rainforests are gone. The deaths of 70,000 persons in Europe were due to rising temperatures in 2003. These imbalances are also leading to frequent flooding and other disasters across the globe, which include forest fires, again impacting the trees.