Plastic bottles scourge of the Pacific

SAMOA – With a number of Pacific countries banning plastic bags in response to the pollution in the ocean, Samoa continues to face a dilemma on how to manage its waste.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme plastics pollution is affecting the food and water supply and could lead to health issues for the people.

SPREP’s pollution advisor Anthony Talouli says the average person in the Pacific eats 90 kilos of fish per year and fish in the Pacific are consuming 30 per cent more plastic than the global average.

Samoa tried to ban plastic bags in 2005 by allowing different degradable plastics.

But Talouli says Samoa needs to consider alternative waste management plans to help the environment and the health of its people.

“There is a call for countries to start banning plastics and going to better alternatives. So there are alternatives to single-use plastics and what Samoa has is a degradable plastic. But it’s not biodegradable –it breaks up into many smaller pieces of plastic, so once its degraded, you have microplastic issues.”

Samoa currently does not have a recycling management system in place, but Talouli says the biggest growing environmental problem is plastic water bottles, which are littering the environment.

“One of the highest numbers of plastic materials that we find is water plastic bottles.

“It used to be sugar-based plastic bottles of Pepsi or for Coke – but now it’s not that, so Samoa like many other countries need to address single-use plastic, but also the plastic bottles and with the plastic bottles they are recycleable.”

There’s no move to ban plastic bags in Samoa, but a new association has been set up to foster ideas about recycling.

Samoa’s Recycling Waste Management Association was formed in the end of last year and is the first of its kind in the region.

Managing director Marina Keil says it will be a slow process for Samoans to get used to the idea of recycling.

“I do know it’s one of the rising issues here in Samoa because no one here in Samoa actually is recycling plastic, so right now there’s nowhere to divert the plastic, but it’s all actually going to the landfill.”

And if it’s not the landfill, it’s on the roadsides, riversides and beaches of Samoa.

Keil says even though plastic drinking bottles has been flagged as Samoa’s main concern, she feels the country could follow Vanuatu and ban plastic bags.

“Instead of using the plastic bags from the shop, maybe we do have those coconut woven bags, where we can probably bring that back into and go to the shops and bring our shopping in those types of bags. You know just re-using the cotton bags instead of using plastic bags to carry shopping. Little steps like that and little things like that we could probably help with the plastic waste issue here in Samoa.”

Samoa’s Recycling and Waste Management Association is working on a plan to put forward to government on how Samoa can support the Cleaner Pacific 2025 strategy.

- Dateline Pacific