Take a walk through Road Town and you will see Styrofoam and plastic wedged in bushes, floating in the harbour, snagged in mangroves, and piled in ghuts like it belongs there.
It doesn’t.
And in a small tourism destination that prides itself on pristine seas and “Nature’s Little Secrets,” such pollution is an existential crisis.
We therefore welcome the government’s decision to move ahead with public consultations on two long-delayed measures to curb plastic waste: a ban on certain single-use plastics and a deposit-return system for beverage containers.
These ideas are not new.
In fact, Cabinet approved them in November 2018. At the time, the Attorney General Chambers was directed to draft legislation to make them happen. The bills were subsequently promised in throne speeches in 2020 and 2022.
But for more than seven years, no such bill ever came to the House of Assembly, and the public heard precious few updates about the initiative.
In the meantime, the problem grew.
Unfortunately, Styrofoam and other plastics do not disappear. They accumulate in drains, ghuts, landfills and waters. They contribute to flooding when drains are blocked. They harm wildlife. They damage reefs and fisheries.
And when waste is burned or dumped, residents are exposed to smoke and toxins that have no place in any community, much less one that prides itself on quality of life.
Health and Social Development Minister Vincent Wheatley is right to describe the proposed measures as urgent. He is also right that the Virgin Islands does not have unlimited space for waste.
But these points should have been obvious long ago.
The territory’s small size and reliance on imports mean that waste management is one of its most pressing long-term challenges. Yet for decades, successive governments have looked the other way.
To see that much, one need only visit Pockwood Pond, where the trash incinerator has been non-operational since a February 2022 fire, leaving most garbage to be buried on a dangerously ill-conceived mountainside landfill.
This irresponsible approach to waste management must change. The proposed measures will be important steps in the right direction if they are properly implemented and executed.
To that end, the plastic ban should be phased in over time and include the most commonly littered, hardest-to-manage single-use plastics. Businesses, of course, will need time to transition, and exemptions will need to be made for essential medical, disability and food-safety needs.
Just as important is the deposit-return system. Such programmes are among the simplest and most widely proven tools for reducing litter and encouraging recycling. The system will give containers value, encourage collection, and keep bottles and cans out of ghuts and the sea.
In other words, both measures are the kind of practical waste-management policy the VI should have implemented decades ago.
Government blamed the long delay on the lack of a policy framework, the need for foundational work, and the diversion of resources during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of these excuses are understandable.
But the public has heard enough explanations. What matters now is action.
The ongoing public consultation is a good step, but it must lead quickly to legislation, clear timelines and real enforcement.
More importantly, the government must not stop there. The measures should lead into a much broader programme of reform as envisioned in the waste management strategy developed for the territory by Swiss firm Agency RED in 2019.
Urgent needs include waste-sorting facilities, a comprehensive recycling programme, a new incinerator, major landfill remediation, legislative reform and many others.
The measures will cost tens of millions of dollars, but they cannot be kicked down the road any longer.
The proposed plastic ban and bottle-return system are reasonable first steps. We hope they come very soon and that they usher in a new era of responsible waste management in the Virgin Islands.