…that I should go nowhere without my camera. Take this morning, for example. I had a meeting in Chaguaramas and just as I was driving past the Yachting Association admiring the scenery, my reverie was interrupted – shocked, actually – by the mass of rubbish floating around the scores of boats that were moored at Hart’s Cut.
Words cannot describe. Hence the need for the camera. I had every intention of going home after the meeting to grab said camera and return to photograph the scene, but unfortunately, an hour later, the tide had carried most of the offensive material out to sea.
The fact that we experienced heavy rainfall last night probably explains the unusually high level of refuse in the water, but let’s not kid ourselves…we’re used to seeing plastic bottles and Styrotex cups congregating along the shoreline like corbeaux who have spotted a dead fish.
This is not good enough – particularly in an area that is designated as a national park. We need to set higher standards for ourselves, educate the blissfully ignorant and put laws in place that penalize those who just don’t care. Outrageously high fines for littering will make the environmentally insensitive think twice about what they toss.
But it’s not that simple. Plastic has taken this region by storm and governments and environmental agencies have not put stop measures in place to help Caribbean populations understand how to deal with the material. In my grandparents’ day, when the Caribbean was pristine, food would be packaged in (biodegradable) paper and drinks in glass bottles. Plastic is a different beast and recycling is not part of the culture. Would it kill regional lawmakers to place a ban on food and drink products that are packaged in plastic – or at the very least place higher taxes/duties on their production and importation?
The bottom line is that we, as citizens, must demand better. There continues to be much talk about developed nation status even as our behaviour regresses and our environmental police appear to rubberstamp projects that are clearly at odds with the best interest of our island – and, of course, all of us who live here.