EMMA LEITCH

Member since April 18, 2020

All input submitted by this participant

There are 2 projects available.

Trending ideas have loaded.

EMMA LEITCH5 years ago One factor that the report does not address, but should, is how to keep whatever plastic and other waste we do produce from reaching the ocean. Living near a major road in Bermuda, I see that littering is significant problem, as is unintentional scattering of garbage by feral chickens and other animals. Could better waste disposal policies reduce the amount of plastics getting into the ocean? For instance, requiring trash to be in cans rather than bags by the road? Having more public trash cans and have them emptied more often? Providing more points for the proper dumping of household waste? Investing in new garbage trucks and/or better trash cans? What about a study of public education campaigns in other jurisdictions that actually have reduced littering - there are clear cultural differences in the social acceptability of littering? KBB is wonderful, but could be much more high profile with additional funding. The SUP ban doesn't really anticipate a reduction in trash as much as a change in its composition, and keeping more of it out of the environment will still be important.

EMMA LEITCH5 years ago I am extremely concerned that this policy paper almost entirely fails to address the environmental and economic impact of the alternative products anticipated to replace SUP, with no analysis of the specific situation in Bermuda. I'm not saying that the alternatives are worse, just that in the absence of data it's irresponsible to believe that whatever happens in the wake of an SUP ban must be net positive.For example, we have a mention that a cotton bag must be reused at least 131 times to reach the efficiency of a SUP bag (which itself is just the conclusion of one study), but that because cotton is biodegradable and plastic is not, cotton should be preferred. But in our Bermudian context, the plastic bag would be burned, whereas the cotton bag would either be burned or landfilled - without a cotton composting/recycling program, this analysis isn't even really applicable. Moreover, the tradeoff presented is probably inapt, as local grocery stores have been selling mostly reusable plastic bags of various types - where is the analysis of these in terms of environmental impact? How many times must they be reused, and how many times are they actually reused in practice? I'm not a fan of SUP bags, but I don't want to inadvertently make a problem worse because we failed to analyze the likely local results. Another endorsed alternative is glass. But with no local production or recycling of glass, has the environmental impact of transporting all that additional weight been calculated? And where are the numbers on public compliance with glass recycling in terms of sorting and appropriately cleaning glass items? Just because plastic is bad doesn't mean that anything non-plastic must be better.This report is odd in that it cites other jurisdictions that have implemented bans but fails to quantify the positive impacts these bans have had (beyond anecdotal evidence of reduction of plastic bags in the ocean). I'd be interested to see which changes are most impactful, and to focus on those.This policy paper is long on aphorisms but short on numbers, and as such I find it an unconvincing basis for legislation that is sure to have wide-reaching effects throughout the economy.