Antigua & Barbuda, Grenada, and Saint Lucia, June 2021 (IUCN).  The virtual meetings held on late June 2021 gathered government representatives, civil society, private sector, academic institutions and local communities from the Caribbean region.

In 2019, with support of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and the Didier and Martine Primat Foundation, IUCN launched the PWFI project, as part of its global Close the Plastic Tap Programme. In the Caribbean Region, the project is being implemented by IUCN’s Regional Office for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean (IUCN ORMACC), focuses on Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, and Saint Lucia, and involves participation of the country governments, as well as regional partner, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). 

The PWFI project seeks to drive the circular economy agenda forward and to reduce plastic waste generation and leakage from the islands. In order to achieve this, the project has selected three plastic waste-related sectors to allow for comparison and best practice sharing: tourism, fisheries and waste management.

Stakeholder update meetings

The meetings focused on the presentation of results and recommendations proposed under the consultancies for the national quantification of plastic waste and policy analysis, as well as the presentation of information under the current consultancies for alternative value chains and economic assessment.

Hon Sir Molwyn Joseph, Minister of Health, Wellness and Environment offered the opening remarks for Antigua and Barbuda. He mentioned his appreciation to IUCN and Norad, and expressed his gratitude to those present at the meeting, highlighting the collaboration and partnership with the private sector in the fight against plastic pollution.

Minister Joseph emphasised the importance of the scientific data generated by the project, which will help guide policies and decisions of the government along with international, regional, and local agencies regarding the issue of plastics. The national quantification of plastic waste will help solidify more projects with multilateral agencies related to the environment and new legislation that would shape plastic bottle recycling across the island. He closed by drawing participants’ attention to the PWFI PET (code 1) bottle recycling pilot, which had been received with enthusiasm and embraced by the communities of Antigua and Barbuda.  

Group discussions with participants were held to gather their input on how to enable the information and knowledge that has been collated by the project in relation to three main areas. Firstly, with regards to what can really be done with recyclable polymers. Secondly, in terms of how they saw the process of taking the policy recommendations forward and how the project can contribute to this. Thirdly, to capture all the elements that they found relevant to inform and help others implement similar actions from a national perspective.

Mr  Janaka de Silva, Senior Programme Coordinator of the IUCN Global Marine and Polar Programme, in closing remarks mentioned that the objective of the meeting was to provide stakeholders with an oversight of the information and knowledge that has been generated to date, and that can help stakeholders identify what are the best solutions to move forward with this work. Mr de Silva walked participants through next steps, which are to materialise all of the information presented into practical actions at a variety of levels, working with existing actions that are already ongoing, and supporting and building where possible. Detailed dialogues will be convened in the second semester of the year to take the work forward in a practical sense. He welcomed stakeholder involvement and participation as the project moves forward and thanked all of those present for their time in attending the meetings.

For further information please contact: ormacc@iucn.org