Yes, we can! Yes, we can!

Dec 20, 2008 Editorial

Guyanese have a fatalistic way of saying that the rains have their work to do and so, too, does man.
Over the past few years, the rains have been doing their work, sometimes not as predicted, sometimes out of season.

Men, too, and in this instance Guyanese, have been doing their work. We have been reckless and uncaring about the environment.

We have been repeating the mantra about caring for our environment while we have been uncaringly polluting the very environment. The result of our actions is a dirty and unhealthy environment.

The flooding that we are witnessing today is not the product of the rains. It is, rather, the product of our own failings, firstly to keep our environment clean, and secondly, our failing to maintain our drainage system.

While we therefore seek to rid the country of floodwaters at this time, let us not look to the heavens and blame the gods for high intensity and above average rainfall.

Let us blame our own lack of planning and our bad habits for the presence of so much Styrofoam and plastic in our drains and canals.

Plastic and Styrofoam cannot be blamed for the tragedy in which we find ourselves. Rather, we have to blame our own indiscriminate disposal of these products.

There is far more Styrofoam and plastic in the developed capitals, such as London, Toronto and New York, than there is in Guyana.

There is far greater consumption of these products in these cities than there is in Guyana, and yet there is not the same level of pollution which exists in Guyana. Why?

We have to face the truth, however difficult and mean-spirited it is. We have failed to keep our surroundings clean, and this says a great deal about ourselves, and it says a great deal of how much pride we take in our communities and our surroundings.

Perhaps it is precisely because we have allowed standards of cleanliness and hygiene to decline so appreciably that we now find ourselves overwhelmed by plastic and Styrofoam.

Perhaps it is because we see our environment as being so dirty that we feel no revulsion towards littering, and thereby contributing further to the decay and stagnation of our drainage system.

Guyanese freely litter. We throw litter in the gutters and in the alleyways; we dump rubbish on the parapets, and we throw boxes and wrappings out of car windows. Perhaps if our communities were more slightly clean and well organised we would litter less.

Plastic and Styrofoam are not going to disappear, and pressing for their banning is not going to help. What we need is for the proper disposal of litter in our country. We feel that, in this regard, the business community can play an important role.

One of the largest producers of waste in this country is the business community, and therefore if there is a need to make a start to eliminate littering, it should begin with the business community.

There are some unscrupulous and uncaring businessmen within our country who actually pay drug addicts to dispose of their garbage, knowing fully well that these ‘junkies’ are not going to any dumpsite to dispose of the garbage. They will go and dump it into some canal or on some street corner.

It is not too late to begin to redeem ourselves. A start must be made now. All communities should be mobilised to be environmental watchdogs, so that we can reduce the incidence of littering and pollution and thereby contribute to an improvement in the drainage system in our country. Can we do it? Yes, we can! Yes, we can!

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