BY JOY OFASIA
PLASTIC pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues and a problem in the Solomon Islands.
Bethlyn Kelly, 18, like many other youths in the country, sees plastic pollution as a serious concern and has the passion to help solve the issue in her local community of Tuvaruhu, in Central Honiara.
Now undergoing her form six at the King George Six National Secondary School, she is motivated to help her community become a plastic-free community.
Bethlyn lives in Tuvaruhu in Central Honiara and see’s that her community is among all other communities in the Honiara City that contribute to the pollution of plastic to the City’s environment.
Early this year in January, she was elected as the President of the Resilience Innovation and Social Change (RISC -GC) Girls Club, a youth-based club that consists of young girls in the Tuvaruhu community, Central Honiara.
“As a young leader, I am both happy and excited to take up this leadership role. It makes me feel responsible, obedient, and creative, and become a role model in my community to help other youths.
“I would like to encourage everyone to change their mindset on how we dispose of away our rubbishes. Let’s all work together to solve the issue and be creative in doing these together we can make Honiara a plastic-free city,” she told Solomon Women.
The club was established through the initiation of Bobby and Emmy Siarana. Bobby graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Science and a major in Chemistry and Earth Science from the University of South Pacific in Fiji.
According to Bethlyn’s role as a new president, she saw the importance of this initiative as a way forward to help tackle the issues and problems related to plastic pollution which contributes to the pollution of her community’s environment.
“The main problem most people have is the bad attitude of throwing away plastic wastes carelessly wherever they want and whenever they want to which is both sad and annoying because it spoils the environment and contributes to pollution.
“Where I live in Tuvaruhu, people just dump their rubbish which includes plastics into the Mataniko River which causes a lot of pollution and at the same time not healthy for those who live beside the river and at the river mouth such as people at the Lord Howe settlement who mostly wash and bath in the river.
“This is a very serious issue and should be addressed, even though there have been a lot of activities already which have been carried out to manage wastes in the town in communities and along the Mataniko river, but I see that more activities should be done again to solve this issue,” she told Solomon Women.
Bethlyn noted that the club which consists of young girls has continued to impact their community through daily cleaning of the environment by recycling plastic bottles into bricks and pavers.
“Club members have continued to engage in recycling activities and to solve these issues, we have opted to start in our (Tuvaruhu) community, since we aim to become a plastic-free community in Honiara.
“The girls have been creative in turning plastics into usable products such as making recycling plastic bags, making paving bricks, turning plastic bottles into usable products and we also provide little training on economic empowerment, art and crafts decorations, food catering, and micro-financing.”
