Dr Rolph Payet meets President Danny Faure |05 March 2020

President Faure welcomes Dr Payet at State House (Photo: Joena Meme)

The executive secretary for the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm convention, Dr Rolph Payet, met President Danny Faure yesterday morning at State House.

The reason for the visit is in relation to the current meeting that is underway concerning the issue of plastics in Seychelles.

During the meeting, Dr Payet noted that he discussed with the head of state about the plastic waste that has been polluting outer islands most of which comes from other countries as plastics float around the world once they are dumped into the ocean.

Plastic waste pollution can affect land, waterways and the oceans when dumped carelessly. The living organisms, particularly marine animals, become vulnerable either by mechanical effects, such as entanglement in plastic objects, or by ingestion of plastic waste.

Dr Payet added that the solution for this is to handle this problem at its source and in 2019 a landmark decision was taken on plastic waste. The decision was taken by the 187 Parties to establish a Plastic Waste Partnership (PWP) to mobilise businesses, government, academic and civil society actors to tackle the growing problem of plastic waste.

The main objective of the partnership is to improve and promote the environmentally sound management of plastic waste at a global, regional and national level. In addition it is aimed to reduce significantly in the long-term and eliminate the “discharge” of plastic waste and micro plastics into the environment.

“We are also working with international companies who are producing over 150,000 kinds of different plastics to manufacture items such as clothes, camera and microphones,” Dr Payet said.

He noted that the reason for this is to get companies to redesign their system of plastic production that can be more recyclable and not end up in the environment.

He also discussed with President Faure about the different legislatures that are in place to encourage recycling and stop littering.

Seychelles also has a project that has just been approved by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) that is providing over US $200 million to all island countries for them to be able to modernise their waste management system in order to be able to recycle items such as phones, computers etc.

“Seychelles has currently banned three types of plastics, which are single use plastics but the government still has a long way to go. There are many types of products made from plastics, so banning all plastics will not be possible at the moment,” Dr Payet said.

He added that some bio-degradable bags have synthetic plastics in them which is dangerous as it cannot be seen with the naked eye and can get in water and food without knowing which can be very harmful.

“We cannot ban plastics completely as it is still used in hospital and the manufacturing of glasses, so the discussion is how to use these plastic products and dispose of them without harming the environment,” added Dr Payet who was a former Seychelles’ minister for environment.

Dr Payet also noted that there has been many developments in the environment sector and he called on all Seychellois to stop littering and abusing the environment because the effects can be permanent.

Christophe Zialor