EDITORIAL
Since the birth of mass production, the 1920’s saw a deliberate move to create the throw-away culture that exists today. This disposable culture places emphasis on the new, quick and streamlined, and an out with the old, and in with the new way of thinking. This mindset has become engrained in our very way of life! The goal is to make a product or part that will fail or become less desirable over time, or after a certain amount of use so that subsequent purchases become necessary.
The philosophy is referred to as “planned obsolescence”. “Planned obsolescence” attained and surpassed its intentions, as examples can be seen everywhere we look. It can be seen in the way we change our “outdated” mobile phones every two years, or when we trade in our television sets for the new smart flat screen televisions. It is evident in the way we change our computers every four years for the newer model, and trade in our vehicles for the new “sexier” one. However, everything comes at a cost, and the cost of this way of living has resulted in detrimental consequences on an environmental and a health level.
At the environmental level, the annual global waste generation from these obsolete or disposable products, is at a staggering amount, and in Barbados, the daily figure is over 1 000 tons of waste. One thousand tons of waste in our over burdened landfills daily from a population of 285 000 people! That is the environmental impact of this throw away society. Much of this waste is in the form of plastics which have been proven to be very damaging to the environment. Only a fraction of this plastic is recycled and the rest ends up in the environment.
Recently, there has been a significant drive to reduce the amount of plastic utilised on the island. This effort has been heralded by many retailers who have introduced a plastic bag fee to consumers as a deterrent to utilising them. This is just a start! It is a known fact, that much of the plastic we throw away ends up in land fills where they never decompose fully, but just break down into smaller particles which end up causing harm to our land and our waters.
In our oceans, micro particles of plastic then end up being eaten by plankton which in turn are eaten by larger fish along the food chain, each time the toxins attach to the plastics and integrate themselves into the muscles and tissues of the fish. Eventually, being at the top of the food chain, we eat those fish and yes, toxins included. This causes all sorts of serious health problems including many endocrine disrupting disorders, growth and reproductive failures to name but a few.
Given these consequences, don’t we think the time has come to take responsibility for our actions personally? Should we not ourselves demand that our retailers use less plastic without having to be compelled to do so by them? Shouldn’t we buy less plastic and recycle our garbage as much as we can? Let us not only embrace this plastic bag initiative, but let us go a step further and champion more initiatives to save ourselves and our environment and leave a legacy that our children can be proud of, and perpetuate!