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Posted By: Marty Plastics and Foam Ban Before The End of '21 - 10/08/21 10:54 AM

Jules asked Hon. Orlando Habet to discuss that supposed ban on single-use plastics. It was announced back in 2018, but since then, it has been pushed back twice: once by the previous government, and once by the current administration.

When Jules asked the Minister about it last night, he said that the ban will go into effect in a few more months:

Jules Vasquez
"Are you able to speak about the banned on the plastics and foam? The last government deferred it right before the election, your government deferred it, when are you going to implement it?"

Hon. Orlando Habet - Minister of Sustainable Development
"We know that the history that is in 2018 the previous administration had presented it in the house, we in opposition supported it, in 2019 the legislation was passed then because of some reason or the other, it was deferred to mid 2019. 2019 it was deferred to 2020 then again to 2021, the last date of use was suppose to be July 2021. We came into new administration and we found ourselves in a dilemma because some of the producers, the manufactures of some of these single use plastics were saying they had in store millions of dollars of raw material and when we looked at it, rightly so because we did, we checked with customs because of the importation to make sure that the information matched and indeed it did and part of the reason why they still had a lot of raw material was because of COVID 19, low tourism, so very little use and they had that material, so we said from our ministry we can do an extension up to December 31 2021, no longer. They were asking for 2-3 years, it's not going to happen because every time you give an extension then you will hoard more material."

Insiders tell us that there are a number of unresolved logistical issues with this policy change.

Channel 7

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