Q: What’s the team is working on in Aruba?

A: A few weeks after their departure, the Aruba team started their research on single use plastic ban in the island.

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Q: Why Aruba banish single use plastic bags?

A: Firstly, we can say that ecologic conscience is now a worldwide tendency. More and more countries became aware of that huge problem that affect us according to the site Pollution coalition.com. Coral reefs around the world, including along Aruba’s coastlines, are suffering from bleaching, with oxybenzone directly impacting corals’ defensive abilities.  Bleaching is typically brought on by unusually warm waters, but it is not necessarily a death sentence if the coral can regenerate. Chemicals like oxybenzone damage the DNA of coral, preventing it from recovering and developing.

Aruba also got a problem of fishes getting stuck in plastic bags which is causing damage and problems.

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Q: So, nature is suffering, but humans themselves are safe?

A:You’d better think again. A real danger is waiting for plastic bag users. The latter use plastic bags as containers. You should know that serving food, especially hot, in a plastic bag is dangerous for your health. Being produced from petroleum and many other components, toxic components can be deposited on the food as stated by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and intoxicate it and this is accentuated when the food is hot. This heat deteriorates the plastic material. When we see that many people, ignorant of danger, serving sauce or other food still hot in plastic bags they consume some time later, it is clear that they destroy their bodies without knowing it. Also, it has been proven that toxic components that settle on foods can cause problems related to human reproduction.

And we also know today that a plastic bag needs 100 to 400 years to disintegrate which is a catastrophe for the ecosystem.

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Q: When the authorities decided that ban?

A:  Aruba's government made a landmark decision in 2017 to ban all single use plastic bags and, encouraged by the impact that move had, has now extended it to include such everyday items as plastic cups and straws and Styrofoam boxes, such as disposable coolers.

 

Q: How many single-use plastic bags Aruba used to consume?

A: Aruba used to consume an estimated 30 million single-use plastic bags yearly which means 575,000 per week and 114 per minute.

 

Q: Is the ban already effective now?

A: No, the ban will be effective in 2019, with a one-year transition period to a total ban in 2020. In collaboration with the university of Aruba, the team is working to measure the effectiveness of this law. Because there are countries where the suppression of plastic bags has had harmful consequences. Morocco is a good example where the state failed at banish single use plastic. After deciding to apply the law in the process of the COP22 which took place in Marrakech, using plastic bags is still a common practice in the country.

 

 

So, this research work will inform us about the reality of single use plastic bags in Aruba.

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