Pacific Island Times Vol 3 No 8 August 2019 | Page 4

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESK Plastic straws and other rubbish A swag bag given away at last month’s Pacific Island Envi- ronmental Conference con- tained a slender woven pouch made of tikog leaves. As I am drawn to or- ganic knickknacks, I mentally labeled the pouch “to keep.” In- side this “to keep” pouch is a pair of metallic blue stainless-steel hollow rods of different sizes, each has a tiny brush. “They are reusable straws,” one of the event organizers offered to help me figure it out when she noticed I was examining the alien objects like a curious caveman. “You can clean them with the brushes.” Ohhh. I guess my delayed cognizant of the function of those rods came from the fact that I don’t usually sip a drink with a straw even at restau- rants. I drink straight from the glass or fast-food soda cup. Not virtue signaling; I just didn’t develop the straw-sipping habit. So the thought of owning my own personal reusable drinking straws is quite alien to me. Those rods, I mentally labeled “to give away”— if there would be any taker. However, I don’t know anyone who drinks with a straw at home. And I wonder if anyone would leave their home with a conscious decision to bring a metal straw with them in case they happen to dine at a restau- rant or stop by McDonald’s. By 2020, plastic shopping bags will be banned on Guam. For environ- mental activists, plastic straw is the new demon. In the last few months, 4 a number of cities in the states have banned plastic straws. The goal is to cut down on plastic litter ending up in the ocean. It’s only a matter of time before the Guam legislature jumps on the bandwagon. I get it. The world, terrorized by the horror of climate change, is in a hurry to hit the zero waste goal— a resource-recov- ery rate of 100 percent. “Yesterday was the dead- line for the global zero waste goal,” one of the resource speakers at PIEC said. Realistically, we’re a long way from that. Focusing on plas- tic straws is a myopic approach to hitting this goal on time. Let’s analyze our own household data to identify the main waste-cutting opportunities. Straws fill up –if at all—.0000001 percent of our garbage bins. The bigger problems don’t even fit in our rubbish cans — detergent and coffee containers, sauce jars, wine bottles, takeout styro boxes and what have you. Guam consumers don’t have much choice. Most products available to us are packaged in these ecologically unfriendly containers. The zero waste movement requires the cooperation of corporate giants. For now, we, local consumers, are in a bind. I consider myself an environmen- tally conscious citizen. I recycle and upcycle. But to be realistic, how much more recyclables and upcycla- bles can I hoard in my tiny apart- ment? On Guam, recycling can be more challenging. No one even knows whatever happened to Guam’s bottle rebate law. And due to a lack of recycling facilities for most nonbio- degradable consumer leftovers on Guam, a huge volume of them end up in the landfill, which is now about to reach its full capacity. About 42,000 tons of recyclables, including broken household items and appliances, are collected every year on Guam, and China’s new policy against taking other countries’ rubbish causes anx- iety, not just to recycling businesses but to solid waste managers as well. In other words, managing consum- er products that are much bigger than straws demands more attention. Zero-waste is a compelling idea. But let’s face it: it is a complex goal, considering the many hurdles. Just the same, “it’s important to set a zero-waste goal,” environmentalist Bob Graves writes, quoting Jared Blumenfeld, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 9 admin- istrator. Setting such a goal, “gets you on the road to designing a zero-waste system.” As that process proceeds, Blumenfeld says, “you’ll engage in waste-characterization studies and find lots of things that don’t need to go into landfills.” Graves noted that local communi- ties sit at the end of the waste stream. “The more effectively they act, the less goes to waste,” writes Graves, associate director of Governing Insti- tute, the designate content curator for the FutureStructure initiative. “But the local recovery system is part of the much larger materials system, and it’s going to take an integrated policy and regulatory framework by government at all levels to create true pathways to zero waste.” Publisher/Editor-in-Chief Mar-Vic Cagurangan [email protected] Contributing Writers Raquel Bagnol Michael Castro Zaldy Dandan Jayne Flores Jeni Ann Flores Ken Leon Guerrero Theodore Lewis Jeffrey Marschessault Diana Mendoza Jonathan Perez Alex Rhowuniong Johanna Salinas Visual Editor Mar-Vic Cagurangan Sales and Marketing Executive Jan SN Furukawa [email protected] Account Executive Anna Marie Alegre [email protected] Administrative Assistant Lolita Therrel [email protected] *** Pacific Independent News Service LLC Tumon Sands Plaza 1082 Pale San Vitores Rd. Tumon Guam 96931 Telephone: [phone] Email: [email protected] Website: www.pacificislandtimes.com The Pacific Island Times is published monthly and circulated in Guam and Palau by the Pacific Independent News Service LLC. Editorial and advertising submissions become property of the Pacific Island Times and cannot be lifted without consent of the publisher. Views and opinions from contributors do not necessarily represent the editorial position of the Pacific Island Times.