Elected officials from the Dutch side are in favor of eliminating single-use plastic and have taken up close contact with Pascale Laborde on this subject.
While the French part is subject to national law in this area, Sint Maarten, which has environmental competence, is entirely free to legislate. “However, we do not yet have specific legislation in this area,” says Nikima Hickinson of the “Department of Interior and Kingdom relations” within the government of Sint Maarten. "That's why, when they saw that we were involved and determined to want to eliminate the use of plastic, the Dutch environmental services consulted us to learn about French law and to see how they could adapt it. to their territory, ”explains Pascale Laborde; the desire is to harmonize the measures by duplicating some of them, so that the population and socio-professionals are subject to the same rules on both sides of the island.
"A bill is being drafted by the Parliament of Sint Maarten", confirms Nikima Hickinson. “It has yet to be discussed among its members and then be put to a vote. It will have to be adopted by majority, its legality will also have to be validated before the law is applied, ”she explains.
In terms of time, everything depends on discussions and negotiations, in short, on political will. “Before we started drafting this bill, we did some research to estimate the impact of this change in terms of procurement costs. And we have seen that the prices are almost the same, ”says Nikima Hickinson.
However, the future Sint Maarten law will be less restrictive than the French law because it will initially only ban plastic bags and sachets distributed in stores as well as straws.
As a reminder, plastic bags are already banned in France, including in Saint-Martin. And early 2021 will also be cotton swabs, cutlery, plates and plastic straws. "To strengthen and support this law, the president of the COM will take a symbolic decree to recall these bans on our territory", specifies Pascale Laborde. "I will also ask him to take a second order to ban the use of polystyrene," she adds.
Finally, Nikima Hickinson suggested to Pascale Laborde to sign a memorandum to testify to the common will on both sides of the island to act in environmental matters. (soualigapost.com)
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