My tribal chief told me…

My Dad, also a chief, told me once:

Kava is unique and has a Spirit. It is a completely natural product, given by Mother Nature. Kava is used for special purposes: to help us to think – Kava Wise – to solve problems, to make peace… We should deeply appreciate what was given to us by our ancestors…

These days people do not respect Kava. If they drink it every day: there is no purpose. Kava doesn’t do its work. It loses its real value and its spirit.

People are losing our roots very quickly, and the respect and understanding for our culture… We are not working together, as we use to do before…

Plastics are fantastic! Made of Oil & Gas, we love it in Paradise

Vanuatu’s Parliament declared unanimously a Climate Emergency in May 2022. In September of the same year, the President made an historic call for treaty to end the fossil fuel era, while the Government committed to 100% renewable energy in electricity generation by 2030.

Great Statements! Great Ambition! So far, in 2024, it is hard to see its meaning in real life…. Since 2022 there have been too much investments from both the public and private sector in fossil fuel dependent vehicles. We are never so dependent of fossil fuel. And, with the poor roads invaded by bigger cars, including less energy efficient SUVs,  the Capital City is becoming less pleasant livable and more polluted. Drivers are losing their Vanuatu Smile…

The fossil fuel and plastic bottles companies have well established effective Environment Social and Governance strategies. They know how to do it… sponsoring events to massage the Body and Mind for selected members of society. A very effective way to keep the businesses growing and “doing good”. The same way that, globally, the Conference of the Parties (COPs), created to discuss the climate crisis, have been organized by countries with high emissions dominated by the fossil fuel lobby. We got into a stage that they became “The specialists’ in climate change to save our wellbeing and the environment…

We all know that the fossil fuels industry, and particularly plastics affect our Oceans, Land, and the Air we breath. We also know that the plastic is in the food we eat and in the water we drink.

Plastics doesn’t really degrade like the organic material. It just breaks into smaller pieces, and this takes time: years, decades, centuries, thousands of years remaining, as dangerous chemicals. Exposure to heat and light accelerates the degradation of plastics, releasing particles into liquids and gases, such as methane into the atmosphere.

The same way fossil fuel companies lie claiming that there is no scientific consensus to link them with climate change, plastic bottle producers say that there is no scientific consensus that micro plastics create harm in human health.

More than 16.000 chemicals have been counted in plastics. These remain for many years, leak into the environment. Burned plastics are extremely toxic when chemicals are released in the air. It is a complete illusion to say that the solution to plastic waste is waste-to-energy incineration system. This is very expensive and dangerous process that requires a high level of expertise to safely maintain it. Not an appropriate solution in Paradise…

Water Plastic Bottles PET (polyethylene terephthalate) are known to have 150 different chemicals and leach 240.000 particles per litter into the liquids contained in it, as per a scientific study published early this year. Reusing a plastic bottle allow more leaking of microplastics into the next liquid. There is no recycling of plastic bottles in Vanuatu.

Organizations that respond to disasters are a major client of plastic bottles. In a disaster situation, it is understandable that the organizations turn to plastic bottles to assist the distress population to access to clean water… Well intentioned aid agencies will always provide bottles and sugar…

Some experts even suggest storing rain-water in plastic bottles, putting them in the sun to sterilize the water from bacteria… A great technique to contaminate the drinking water with microplastics…

The Public sector is also a great client of drinking water in plastic bottles. High-level meetings, summits, conferences, workshops, retreats, and low-level meetings are usually accompanied by drinking water served in plastic bottles. Taxpayers add on water bottled expenses when the tap drinking water is still available. Thank you tax payers: bottled water costs 2000 times as much as tap water, which is monitored by a state regulator.

Plastic Bottles are very popular in Vanuatu. Kava – a completely organic product – is now contaminated with microplastics .

Plastic is so linked with Kava that consumers usually say “We drank 3 plastics”, rather than saying “We drank Kava”…  Is Plastic now part of Vanuatu’s customary practices?

People may think that reuse of plastics bottles is good for the environment, but the reality is the detriment of their own health.

Plastic Bottles pollute the liquids they contain as a recipient. “When you drink water from a plastic bottle, you will also be gulping down an unhealthy dose of microplastics — tiny plastic particles measuring less than 5mm. Being plastic, these particles do not decompose all that easily and will accumulate over time in our bodies — a process called bioaccumulation. Reusing plastic bottles will increase the amount of microplastics ingested”

As more medical scientific research is available it is clear that we have microplastics already in our blood, hearts and testicles in our lungs, in the placenta in the breast milk our children drink. It is already known that microplastics have a negative impact on hormone systems and children not yet born, women with diabetes . Plastics accelerate the growth of cancer cells….

People question why people die so young in Vanuatu, speculating about Vaccines, microwave phone signals or 5G, while drinking Kava with microplastic

Plastics is a Health Problem, but the health authorities are quiet about it…

Meanwhile, we keep producing our pure organic Kava. Squeeze through it cloths of polyester (also plastic) into plastic buckets previously used by synthetic wall paint, store it in reused water plastic bottles. All these containers are exposed to the light, heat from the sun which degrades them – breaks them into pieces of micro plastics and we reused again the next day.

Despite of the available scientific information on the negative impacts of plastics in the environment and public health, the plastic industry plans to triple production levels by 2060. This excludes industry intention to triple recycling of plastics. It is becoming clear that plastic is simply a bad product.

Plastic circularity is a myth. A marketing strategy from plastic producers to delay the real solution: Vanuatu banned plastic bottles in 2017.

BUT Plastic bottles resuscitated after a plastic bottle company sponsored a sports event organized by the government. Environment Social and Governance strategies work well in Vanuatu. So, let’s pretend that Vanuatu recycles plastic bottles…

A deposit scheme is great for single use plastic bottle producers, it is not recycling and an encouragement for consumers to buy more single use plastic bottles. In Germany, a law passed in 2003 aimed to reduce single-use containers to 20 percent of the market, but the opposite has happened: single-use plastic bottles now account for 71 percent of the market compared with 40 percent a decade ago, according to a 2021 University of Halle-Wittenberg study.

To defend the Environment and the People in Paradise we could to add Value to Kava