In early 2020, it seemed like a ban on single-use plastics in the Cayman Islands was a done deal.
In February that year, a steering committee set up by the Progressives-led government recommended legislation be implemented to ban these plastics from January 2021. But, then, a month later, the COVID-19 pandemic began impacting Cayman and the impetus to introduce the ban was lost as the islands battled the health crisis.
Premier Wayne Panton, in his first budget address as leader of the PACT government, in November last year, said, “We are ready to move forward with the ban of single-use plastics… We do not believe in reinventing the wheel and will therefore resurrect the work previously done on that and move forward.”
The Compass reached out to government for an update on the delayed plastics ban following Oly Rush’s swim to highlight plastic pollution and the work of Plastic Free Cayman, which has been campaigning for a ban on single-use plastics.
The government’s response, on 19 May, indicated that the Ministry of Sustainability and Climate Resiliency and the Ministry of Health and Wellness are preparing to reconstitute the steering committee “with updated and more focused terms of reference and a new timeline for providing recommendations to the Government”.
It added, “It is anticipated that the recommendations of the new committee will come to Cabinet by the end of June and the Ministry expects to provide legislative drafting instructions by the end of August.”
A Plastic Free Cayman spokesperson told the Compass, “Our government needs to understand that plastic pollution is not going away and will become exponentially worse unless we intervene. We encourage our ministers to join us on Sunday, 29 May’s beach clean-up event in order to see the severity of the problem Cayman and the world is facing.”
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