“Plastic Free July”, taking up a personal challenge

Every long journey starts with a small step. And people around the globe are taking up a personal challenge and “refusing single-use plastic” for the month of July. I am also taking up this challenge and request you to take it up too.

Plastic Free July is a movement that inspires millions of people to “be part of the solution” to plastic pollution. Besides being an eyesore, ever-increasing plastic waste is a pressing environmental issue, as well as a threat to our health, our coastal tourism, and our economy at large.

What was once considered a miracle material for its durability and longevity has turned into a disaster on a planetary scale:

·??????Over 300 million tonnes of plastic are produced every year in the world according to a United Nations Environment Programme 2018 report.

·??????About 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in our oceans every year (same source).

·??????In Mauritius, about 75,000 tonnes of plastic wastes are generated annually.[1]

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a floating plastic island – covers an estimated surface area of 1.6 million square kilometres, a little less than the Mauritian Exclusive Economic Zone. Nearer to us, in the Indian Ocean, another garbage patch was discovered a decade ago.

The harm this causes to our health and environment is very serious: water samples collected in the Indian Ocean over the last decade show the presence of plastics and microplastics. Not surprising, given that 80% of marine debris are made up of it. These break down in micro and nanoparticles, are ingested by marine life and cause endocrine disruption in both humans and wildlife.

Concerns are also raised about the slow death of marine life due to loss of biodiversity: seabirds, fishes and turtles – and even whales – have stomachs filled with debris or suffer injuries from floating plastic waste and die. At least 700 species are said to be threatened directly by the presence of plastic in the oceans.

A gloomy picture: our landfills are stocked to the brim; our oceans are drowned in plastic. They are in dire need of our attention and we have a long way to go before solving the issue. The recent regulations banning the importation, manufacture, possession, sale, and use of non-biodegradable single-use plastic products are crucial, but not sufficient.

A few weeks ago, as the President of the Business Mauritius Sustainability and Inclusive Growth Commission, I visited a pop-up exhibition where Nestlé, one of the largest food players on the market, showcased their efforts to limit plastic waste through Research and Development.

This is a proof that solutions do exist, and that they exist at every level. Some of them indeed require our businesses to take up the challenge to invest in innovation and technology to bring new materials or redesigned products to the table. This would in turn imply that we will need to rethink our use of everyday objects and the way we dispose of them.

Within the Rogers Group, over the past years, we have been doing our part to address this crisis by replacing plastic with eco-friendly alternatives: plastic bottles have been replaced with refillable glass or stainless-steel bottles in our hotels and leisure operations; plastic straws have disappeared from our restaurants; in our aviation sector, we encourage employees to collect plastic bottle caps that are then transformed by a local enterprise into tables and benches.?

In Bel Ombre, we have been partnering with a microbusiness, Outgrowing, that makes biodegradable plates out of dried palm leaves.

Solutions do exist, and Plastic Free July is just a reminder that our Planet once existed without plastic.

It is our responsibility as individual citizens and key economic players on our Island to focus our efforts on supporting sustainable consumption since we know that this will help to safeguard our terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

Let’s all take up the challenge and “refuse single-use plastic”. We can even up our game and go beyond the 31st of July!

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#plasticfreejuly #plasticpollution #zerowaste #BeatPlasticPollution #sustainableliving

[1] Contr?le des déchets plastiques. Ministère de l’Environnement, de la Gestion des déchets et du Changement climatique