Plastic bottle tax desperately needed

As the saying goes, no one raindrop ever takes responsibility for the flood, and in the truest sense of that analogy, every single beverage and water company selling into this market that does not come with a redemption built in to encourage recycling and the picking of the environment clean by scavengers are themselves responsible for every instance of damage where it is clearly proven that plastic bottles blocked up the waterways and watercourses that led to or exacerbated the flooding taking place.

This is not to excuse the citizenry from the disgusting habit of wantonly littering their environment.

But as our experience has shown that it is far easier to enforce through greed than through discipline, one wonders why a beverage container bill placing the responsibility to clean-up after themselves on the manufacturers/importers via a redemption tax has never been done by either a UNC or PNM government. Every single flood demonstrates the need for such legislation, yet for reasons they alone could know or answer, both parties continue to ignore this dire need and their responsibility to the detriment of the environment and the nation as a whole.

Once more I suggest that a tax be levied on the manufacture and importation of plastic bottles into this market that could be used as an incentive for gathering and returning these bottles to central collection sites where they could be reduced, recycled or repurposed.

Properly and effectively done, it would encourage the indigent and otherwise unemployable to literally pick the environment clean in exchange for money at the lowest levels of the economy, creating a win/win/win scenario for the poor, the nation, and even the manufacturers themselves.

It is an abdication of governmental, if not parliamentary, responsibility that this issue is not occupying a front-burner position in the national conversation at the level where laws are passed, but again to make the political point that should be glaring to everyone reading this.

This is yet another example as to why neither of those parties should ever be given stewardship over this nation, simply because they lack the vision and leadership required to take the nation and the people where they need to be.

Once again the spotlight is turned on the cozy relationship between business and public office holders. Organisations such as the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the Manufacturers’ Association and the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association see it fit to raise hell on matters in which they and their members and close associates see themselves as victims, but in cases such as these where commercial interests are clearly the proven culprits, there’s nothing but silence.

The nation cannot continue to be mismanaged in the name of tribal politics and greed. We as a people need to get our collective act together and decide if what we want is a nation that works.

If it is, one of the things we are going to need are sensible laws that solve problems, like in this case the desperate need for a plastic bottle bill that cleans up the environment and reduces the effects and instances of flooding.

PHILLIP EDWARD ALEXANDER via email