I try not to be tender about Haiti but I’m feeling a little tender and defensive now, as I think about how hard it would be — how hard it is — to regulate environmental protection there, and why. As I noted in my last post, the Martelly government has banned the sale and distribution and importation and manufacture of plastic containers and bags as of October 1. However, as astute Associated Press reporter Trenton Daniels noted in a recent dispatch from Port-au-Prince, Haitians on the ground are happily ignoring the ban and selling bags and using plastic food containers just as if no ban had ever been announced.

In Haiti, plastic pollution is rampant. On October 1, the Martelly government says it will begin enforcing a new ban on the manufacture, use, and importation of plastic and foam containers, including food carry-out containers and the black plastic bags that have become ubiquitous in the country.