KINGSTON, Jamaica – A ban will be imposed on the use of plastic lunch boxes, effective December 31, 2023, as government efforts continue to shift to more sustainable options.

This was announced by Minister Without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation Senator Matthew Samuda, while addressing Thursday’s non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing ceremony for the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) Adopt-A-Mangrove programme. The event was held at the agency’s head office in Kingston.

Minister Samuda indicated that the elimination of lunch boxes will represent an extension of the existing ban on single-use plastic items that was implemented in 2019.

“We made the initial change as it related to Styrofoam; there was a wave of recycled paper alternatives in the market then. Obviously, smart businessmen found another plastic solution that I would say went around the policy intent,” he noted.

Samuda added that with the extension of the banned items, the intention is to “close that loophole, because it was certainly not intended [for Styrofoam] to be replaced by Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)”.

While PET is a better material compared to Styrofoam, it is still not the most suitable material to be used.

“We want recycled paper-based solutions as our lunch boxes,” Samuda emphasised.

To help alleviate some of the solid waste issues affecting Jamaica, the ban will also include personal care products that have microplastics in them.

“There are some skews or variants of deodorants and facial soaps that have plastic beads in them that are deleterious to human and marine health. There is no sewage-based system on Earth that would extract these plastic beads before they are put out into the environment. So, we are looking at the items that can be removed from our waste stream,” Minister Samuda said.

“Every step towards environmental protection and restoration, where needed, is a good step towards Vision 2030 [Jamaica] and, practically, it is a step towards us not having to explain to our children, in an embarrassed manner when we are older, why we didn’t take particular steps,” he added.

– JIS