ENVIRONMENT-JAMAICA: NGOs Propose One Stick To Beat Two Problems

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Dionne Jackson Miller

MONTEGO BAY, Mar 21 2002 (IPS) - To the uninformed observer flying over Jamaica, the thick, lush forests blanketing the hills of southern Trelawny are relatively untouched. In reality, farmers intent on preserving their livelihood are denuding the forests of one of their most critical components.

Jamaican yam farmers have traditionally cut down young trees to help them cultivate the edible tuber. The slim trunks of the saplings are used as stakes, to provide support for the yam vines as they twine above the ground, while the nutritious tuber grows to maturity underground.

Because the sticks generally last for only one season, however, cutting down saplings for “yam sticks” is an important factor contributing to deforestation here.

The National Environmental and Planning Agency says the rate of deforestation caused by the 11-million-dollar yam industry “could be two percent or more, having increased significantly in the last two decades”. That translates into from nine to 45 million saplings cut down annually.

The practice has serious environmental implications, says the executive director of the Southern Trelawny Environmental Agency, Hugh Dixon, who has worked closely with yam farmers the past five years.

“You’re removing the potential secondary growth of the forest. If we should have a hurricane or some disaster that moved the primary forest, you would have difficulty with secondary growth because of the removal of saplings,” Dixon says.

Environmentalists and agriculturalists have tried to promote an alternative method of production that does not use yam sticks, but it has been slow to catch on. However, a new proposal could solve this problem and at the same time tackle another of Jamaica’s pressing environmental dilemmas – plastics pollution.

In recent years, the increased popularity of soft drinks bottled in plastic has left the island choking in waste. Approximately 240 million plastic bottles are generated in Jamaica every year, but only about 10 percent are collected by a non-profit organisation called Recycle for Life, then shipped overseas and recycled.

Because garbage collection and disposal systems are inadequate, many of the remaining 90 percent end up in gullies, drains, along the roadside, in the sea and washed up on the island’s beaches.

Enter the “plastic yam stick” — or at least, a proposal for one.

U.S.-based plastics experts are now working with Recycle for Life and the Southern Trelawny Environmental Agency to develop a prototype for field and market testing.

While developing the yam sticks, the company will also explore the feasibility of manufacturing other value-added products such as roofing shingles, as is being done in Barbados, or “plastic wood” products, similar to those being made in Puerto Rico.

Estimates of the number of bottles the project could devour are incomplete, but the executive director of Recycle for Life, Bevon Morrison, is optimistic it could make a significant dent in the pollution problem.

“If we were to try to do 45 million yam sticks, plus roofing shingles, we would run out of material,” she says. “It would probably take about 240 bottles to make a yam stick. The consultants will get back to us, but it would mop up a lot of the bottles.”

A U.S.-based manufacturer says yam sticks are just one way to turn waste plastic into valuable products that would otherwise have to be imported. Terry Minnick’s Molding Business Services was integral in a Barbados venture to develop roofing shingles from plastic.

“We’re in production in Barbados, and so we have an interest in doing projects like that in the Caribbean,” says Minnick, president and owner of the firm. “We would take the soda bottles, grind them up to a flake, and then extrude them in some sort of proprietary shape that would be used to replace a natural wood yam stick,” he explains.

The yam stick project has already caught the attention of several local and international agencies, including the University of the West Indies, the Scientific Research Council and U.S.-based Nature Conservancy.

Dixon acknowledges there will be several obstacles to overcome in bringing a plastic yam stick to market, including developing a successful prototype and, critically, getting farmers to accept the product.

Nevertheless, he says the effort must be made, as the pay-off will be significant. For example, by purchasing plastic yam sticks that could last for several seasons, farmers could reduce production costs by at least 20 percent.

“If plastic yam sticks can take off, you’re looking at three benefits: conservation of the existing forests that are being denuded; utilising what would be waste from plastics; and reducing the cost to the farmer,” says Dixon.