Let’s talk about trash!
(Celebrating Earth Month)

Earth Day Message 2023

Hon. Kenneth Bryan, MP

Minister for Tourism and Ports

On April 22nd, 2023, more than 1 billion people will participate in Earth Day activities. For 53 years, people from more than 190 countries including the Cayman Islands, continue to not only highlight major issues affecting our environment but also take action in finding solutions to these problems.

Whether it is volunteering to clean up roadsides and beaches, or arranging large-scale protests advocating for lawmakers to create more sustainable laws; people the world over continue to observe Earth Day as a day to collectively push for tangible change, for the future of our planet.

In the early days, the Earth Day organisation promoted the three R’s – Reuse, Reduce, and Recycle but as the past few years have indicated heightened issues, from climate change to threatened food security in many countries, the message has changed to ‘Invest In Our Planet”.

This aptly named theme means coming up with innovative ways to affect broad change, taking bold actions, and then implementing these changes. But a change of this magnitude cannot take place without the entire community - and in this case - the entire world coming together, taking accountability for their own environments. When everyone invests in our planet, we will start to see change, we will make a difference.

I firmly believe that keeping Cayman clean is a shared responsibility between residents, businesses, the government, and visitors alike. It is essential for us all to create a shift from a litter culture to one of civic pride in maintaining clean and healthy surroundings.

As the Minister for Tourism, I know that the natural beauty of our Islands is an important factor in drawing visitation to our beloved islands. Therefore, keeping our landscape and seascapes free of litter is fundamental to maintaining our status as a world-class tourism destination.

To this end, in 2022 I worked to re-establish the Beautification Task Force with the aim of making an indelible mark on the face of our landscape. One of the major projects the Beatification Task Force is currently working on is a national anti-littering signage campaign where signs will be installed at the various ports of entry and along our beaches throughout all three Cayman Islands.

During Phase Two of the campaign, the group aims to place signs along frequently used roadways, and in areas with known illegal dumping sites in every district.

The Task Force is just one way I envision we will provide answers to the increasing problem of littering and illegal dumping we are now experiencing. I encourage individuals to invest in their homes and yards as well; commit to volunteering to improve our communities through events like the longstanding Chamber of Commerce National Clean Up, which depends on the support of businesses and private citizens.

Caring for the environment has always been a part of the ethos of Caymanian heritage so let us not wait for one time per year to do this, I encourage you to plant trees and plan neighbourhood clean-ups at different times throughout the year.

Amplify your impact by using social media to educate friends and family about environmental activities you may be involved in.

Employ simple lifestyle changes, such as reducing plastic consumption by using reusable and sustainable materials, setting up recycling bins in your homes, and buying sustainable clothing.

Participate in advocacy groups like the Beautification Task Force, National Trust of the Cayman Islands, or Plastic Free Cayman, to campaign for better sustainable business practices or for changes to our existing laws.

If we all commit to making a meaningful investment in our planet, we will protect the well-being of our tourism products, our livelihoods, and ultimately our communities.

So, this Earth Day, plan to be part of the solution and not the pollution.

God bless you.

Elizabeth II, 2007.Chris Jackson/Getty Images

The Queen was also very involved in the environment. The Queen Elizabeth II National Trust was formed in 1977, and by 2006 more than 2,300 landowners had registered covenants to protect their land. These sites, covering more than 76,000 hectares, may be bush, wetlands, historic sites or special landscapes.

The Cayman Islands National Trust

The Cayman Islands National Trust is also about protecting the future of the Island’s heritage. According to the National Trust Law established in 1987, it states, “our purpose is to preserve natural environments and places of historical significance for present and future generations of the Cayman Islands.”

The National Trust protects 9 nature reserves spanning over 3,300 acres of dry forest and mangrove wetlands. The trust owns 12 historic sites from the 1700’s through to the modern era.

There are numerous outreach activities, educational programs and events coordinated by the Trust staff.

For more information visit www.nationaltrust.org.ky

Earth Day 2019

The Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce

While we may have created this belief that the world “belongs” to us, I think it’s important to note that there is no other species above mankind and that we should have a sense of awareness of the consequences of our actions and note that it could work against our ultimate survival.

We need to care not only about the present, but also future generations, and even the fate of other forms of life.

The Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce will once again carry out its annual Earth Day clean up.

I personally have participated in this event for several years as seen below:

Earth Day 2013

Earth Day 2017 and 2018 had similar shirts

What does it take for a planet to be habitable?

Researchers have identified three necessary requirements for a planet to sustain life: an ocean and dry land, moderately high levels of carbon dioxide, and long-term climate stability.

Scientists know little about what early Earth was like nearly 4 billion years ago, but they agree that it was a harsh environment different from that of today.

Radiometric Dating Methods

With the use of radiometric dating methods, knowledge of the various rocks found around the world has become more precise. You may be asking yourself what is radiometric dating as I did? Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that direct methods of dating fossils first became available in the late 1940’s. These methods used naturally occurring isotopes of certain elements found in rocks or fossils to determine their ages and is still used today. This process is also called absolute dating. Cool!

Scientist have widely accepted radiometric dating as a reliable way to determine the exact ages of rock strata. The oldest rocks on Earth that have been dated (using isotopes with half-life’s much longer than carbon) include rocks from South Africa, southwestern Greenland, and Minnesota, which are approximately 3.9 billion years old. Rocks brought back to Earth from the moon have been dated from 3.3 to 4.6 billion years old. These pieces of evidence have led researchers to suggest that the Earth and the moon might have been formed from the same processes at the same time. How intriguing!

The Ultimate Garbage Disposal

According to The National Geographic book called The World is Blue, how our Fates and the Oceans are One, the term above isn’t quite adequate to describe the dimensions of the great mass of human-made debris found in the ocean.

Of course, people have been throwing things into the ocean-and in heaps and piles on the land too-for as long as there have been people. But now there is approximately seven billion of us generating the kinds of things that do not easily melt into the landscape or seascape.

Plastics

The most abundant, troublesome, persistent and deadly debris is composed of plastic. The term “plastics” may be defined as the wide range of synthetic polymeric materials that are characterized by their deformability and can therefore be molded into a variety of three-dimensional shapes, including a variety of common materials such as polypropylene, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene, nylon, and polycarbonate.

Overtime plastics have quietly creeped into every facet of human society, seducing us with their multiplicity of uses, their durability, transmutability (Awesome word! It basically means if something is transmuted into a different form, it is changed into that form). It’s interesting to note, and I also agree that all of human civilization got along perfectly well without plastics for as long as there have been people-up until the past few decades.

However, whether we possess plastic or not is not the problem. The problem is the magnitude of synthetic materials that are used briefly, then thrown away for eternity, thereby permanently changing the nature of the world.

Aiming for Zero Waste

According to Ian D Williams and Tony Curran, Waste Management Research Group, School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton, zero waste is a whole system approach that aims to eliminate rather than ‘manage’ waste. As well as encouraging waste diversion from landfill and incineration, it is a guiding design philosophy for eliminating waste at source and at all points down the supply chain. It shifts from the current one-way linear resource use and disposal culture to a ‘closed-loop’ circular system modeled on Nature’s successful strategies.

The zero-waste approach envisions all industrial inputs being used in final products or converted into value-added inputs for other industries or processes. In this way, industries will be reorganized into clusters such that each industry’s wastes/by-products are fully matched with the input requirements of another industry, and the integrated whole produces no waste. From an environmental perspective, the elimination of waste represents the ultimate solution to pollution problems that threaten ecosystems at global, national and local levels.

In addition, full use of raw materials, accompanied by a shift towards renewable sources, means that utilization of the Earth’s resources can be brought back to sustainable levels.

For business, zero waste can mean greater competitiveness and represents a continuation of its inevitable drive towards efficiency. First came productivity of labor and capital, and now comes the productivity of raw materials – producing more from less.

Zero waste in industrial networks can therefore be understood as a new standard for efficiency and integration.

For more information visit: www.waste-management-world.com