Young activists to protest missing plastic ban

| 21/09/2022 | 25 Comments
Cayman News Service
Volunteers at Colliers Beach (photo by Plastic Free Cayman)

(CNS): Members of Protect Our Future will be leading other environmental activists in the Youth Global Climate Protest on Friday. In what is now an annual event inspired by Greta Thunberg, Cayman’s local climate activists will be marching to the Government Administration Buildings to ask the government about progress on the proposed plastic ban.

Cayman’s plastic problem continues to mount as the island not only deals with its own excessive use but has to contend with a massive amount of degrading plastic that washes up on the shore posing a threat to our marine environment.

Last weekend POF activists joined Plastic Free Cayman and 120 local volunteers at Colliers Public Beach for World Clean Up Day and picked up 1,150 pounds from the East End beach. Although much of it was marine debris from nearby islands, the activists said that the hefty trash haul nevertheless included local littering from a sizable dumping ground opposite the beach. 

“As we slowly revert back to normal life post-pandemic, Plastic Free Cayman’s urge for a single-use plastic ban is stronger than ever,” the team said in a press release about the event. “As more and more countries continue to launch plastic-free initiatives, such as the most recent single-use plastic ban in India, we believe it is high time the Cayman Islands join this global fight and take a step towards more zero waste solutions.”

The non-profit organisation pointed out that the United Nations estimates there will be around 12 billion tons of waste in our world by 2050. While the Cayman Islands is not a major contributor to this global catastrophe, it is among the small islands that will bear the brunt of this pollution for generations to come.  

The young people from POF urged everyone to join the march on Friday and show the government the strength of feeling in the community for a ban. “Now more than ever, youth voice is incredibly important,” the POF team added.

The protest will begin at 3pm on Friday at the Dairy Queen on North Church Street. The climate activists will then march straight to the GAB, where the protest will continue from 3:30-4:30pm on the steps of the building.

For more information check out POF social media pages.


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Category: Climate Change, Science & Nature

Comments (25)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Your future here is whatever CIG allows you to have. CIG doesn’t care about the future here. All they can think about is themselves and the next election. If you really want plastic free lives you must go elsewhere.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Ironically posing adjacent a loaded heap of single use trash bags. #facepalm

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  3. Anonymous says:

    Single use plastic bans, are well-intentioned, but it is self-serving window dressing to pretend that is the maximum extent of man-made pollution inputs. Banning straws has been a propagandised misdirection in Canada to acquit the limited consciousness of residents blind to their own government spending a fifth of GDP on production of the dirtiest CO2 crude on Earth. Here, entire buildings containing asbestos, PVC, lead, and other contaminants are trucked to the dump and lumped unsorted in an unlined landfill. Daily, thousands of construction workers dump chemicals, solvents, paint and other stuff into our grey and blackwater drains. So yes, for sure, the unnecessary straws and bags, but open your eyes kids to the bigger targets. Examine your own diet, consumerism, and #5 for example. Right now, everyone has the choice to politely decline the straw, the cutlery, the bag. It’s not confrontational to do so.

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  4. Bus to School says:

    They lost me at “inspired by Greta Thunberg”.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Where is old Greta now that Europe is in utter ruin?

      Green “plan” was a kak plan… now everyone in darkness and winter around the corner.

      Climate change.. biggest farce ever.

      Let big brother tax you for what happens naturally anyway.

      Lest not forget we have had three ice ages not too long ago. Not many humans around back then… must have been man made.. somehow right?! No… ?!?! Dammit… narratives falling apart!

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  5. Anonymous says:

    Start with the masks and rapid tests.

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  6. Anonymous says:

    Jon Jon said we would ban single use plastics and then went crickets!

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  7. Anonymous says:

    Way to deflect …. It’s a PACT failure! They have had almost 1 1/2 years to do it

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    • Anonymous says:

      Who cares? If you think I’m cycling somewhere half the population have never taken a real test you can forget it!

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      • Anonymous says:

        🚲 Building effective #bicycle infrastructure that is safe, direct, and with as few interruptions as possible is one step we can take towards making every day #CarFree.
        Better bicycle infrastructure could increase the proportion of bicycle trips up to 35% of all trips, and #MoveTheDate of #Earth #OvershootDay by 9 days.
        https://bit.ly/3wJknI4

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      • Anonymous says:

        I don’t really care if you ride. What you should care about is that the bike lanes were part of the NRA Plan, Budgets, and Board Criteria since 2015. They should be safe, direct, and uninterrupted. For seven years the people of the Cayman Islands have been invoiced for this missing infrastructure – not delivered by Joey Hew, even though he went on with promises about how they would be put in. Successors have similarly failed. Even DART has failed to put them in through Camana Bay. I guess we shouldn’t underestimate the power of the gas station owners lobby. What did they pay these self-ascribed “bike lovers” to stand down?

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  8. Anonymous says:

    I wonder if they realize that Most of that has floated from the other countries. not to be mistaken though, that we have disgusting people here that just litter the place with no care whatsoever, it is a shame the likes of these people are around here.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Many the people you speak of are however from those same other countries…

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      • Anonymous says:

        Most of our beach trash comes from Haiti so I doubt it.

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      • Anonymous says:

        There is no municipal waste collection in most of the third world. Where budget is allocated it is often stolen/diverted by political gatekeepers. Households without running potable water rely on bottled. Garbage piles up until someone throws theirs in the river gully, and others follow suit. Then tons of that trash flows out into the ocean. At least 4 of those problem gullies, just in Kingston area. That’s normal for many people that haven’t had the good fortune to live somewhere where that’s culturally unthinkable.

      • Anonymous says:

        Facts

    • Anonymous says:

      Misses the point completely. If the richest island in the region, us, can’t ban single use plastics then what chance is there anyone else ever will? What right do we have to ask everyone else to do it if we don’t do it ourselves?

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  9. Anonymous says:

    too little too late for caymanian poorly educated mla’s who have spent decades literally sticking their heads in the sand regarding environmental issues…..
    just another day in wonderland.

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  10. Anonymous says:

    Well done, Protect Our Future. Thanks for all your hard work.

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  11. Anonymous says:

    another major pact/wayne failure

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    • Anonymous says:

      Bigger PPM failure. PPM had 8 consecutive years to address environmental issues, such as this, but did not. Any such PACT failure is an even bigger PPM failure.

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