Beating plastic pollution
The Cooperative Republic of Guyana joins with the rest of the world in observing World Environment Day 2018. This day, the most important day in the UN’s calendar of events dealing with the environment, is an opportunity for nations and peoples around the world to recommit to practical policies and sustained action to promote global environmental security.
I urged greater environment responsibility on the part of all in my address to the High Level Segment Opening of the 3rd Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly held in Nairobi, Kenya, in December 2017. I noted that a clean environment is an entitlement of all and an elemental principle of environmental security.
This year’s theme – “Beating Plastic Pollution” – reminds us that the indiscriminate and insanitary dumping of single-use plastics and other non-biodegradable substances threatens the health of citizens and the food they consume.
Plastic pollution represents a serious challenge to Guyana’s environmental security. Plastic pollution is dangerous. It has contributed to congested drainage systems; resulted in flooding and insanitary conditions; depleted aquatic life and contaminated creeks, rivers, freshwater supplies and waters used for drinking, bathing, fishing and washing.
Guyana is on the way to becoming a ‘Green State’. It is developing policies aimed at protecting the environment by reducing, and eventually eliminating, plastic pollution.
Guyanese, everywhere, can help beat plastic pollution by curtailing their use of of single use plastics, disposing of plastics responsibly and switching to environmentally friendly alternatives. “Now is the time to act!”
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