“Ultimately, we want to move away from single use plastics and there are many initiatives we can put in place to deal with this,” she said. “One thing is using a reusable water bottle and so we can start to look at reusable containers.”
Ms. Lewis stated that at the school they recycle their plastic bottles including water bottles, detergent bottles and all other recyclable plastics.
“We collect them currently at the school and then they are sent over here to Admirals Recycling in St. Kitts,” she said. “It’s a way of increasing landfill capacity by reducing the amount of landfill waste in our societies.”
It was noted that the landfills fill up quickly and with an increase of items being imported into the country there needs to be a waste management strategy that deals with it.
“Ideally we want to move away from that problem. So, when we talk about landfills space, we are increasing what we call land take,” said the Nevis Sixth Form Environmental Science Teacher. “Land take means not keeping the space green. As we look at Nevis Naturally, we want to promote green tourism, we want to be eco-friendly and if we want to promote Nevis Naturally we want to reduce land take, keep spaces as green as possible and if our landfills have to expand because we continue to consume plastic products then it means less green space.”
Ms. Lewis stated that persons must be practical and reasonable as well with the decisions that they make.
“Plastic is cheap now, but it is expensive in the long run,” she said. “When it comes to landfill, let us recycle when we can, but ultimately move away from these plastics when possible.”
The Nevis Sixth Form Teacher mentioned that plastics can be harmful to young children. She added that manufactures are not making plastics without the harmful substance called BPA.
“As we talk about the chemicals in plastics, one of the things they have taken out of plastics is a substance called BPA,” she said. “This has been linked to brain development issues in younger children. So now if you are buying a plastic bottle in the stores you would see that it says BPA free because the chemical has been linked to brain development issues.”
