Environment and politics have to coexist in a relative ratio in which the government understands that while the environment should not run their every decision, it should be uppermost in their thinking. As such, if our Island becomes a place where the environment is kept in mind in political decisions and is respected by the people it can be more productive and sustainable.Environment and politics are very important factors in our society. Both affect thousands of people in their daily lives. When there is disproportion in these two factors, the results can be very bad.When the government does not have control or regulation of the environment then the results can be an environment and government in crisis, such as with the “blood diamond” mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There, six million people have been killed in the race for tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold, and the environment has been severely damaged because of collapsed mines, dynamite bombing and much worse.On top of all of this, corruption is rampant in the government for several reasons, including the “Warlord” leader’s quest for power. Little has been put in place to help or conserve their environment. Politics and making money seem to have become the most important thing. Not only does the environment suffer from this, the people do so as well because they can’t walk across a field without wondering if their next step might be onto a mine that is about to blow up.If Bermuda’s government helps the environment only a little, with say a few national parks and ponds, but little else, then people can become less environmentally conscious themselves. If there is a limited structure for recycling, as there is here, then people become less inclined to be conservative with how much packaging they use in the grocery store or how much they throw away. The people do not suffer in the short term, as there is investment and conservation, but simple things like recycling and waste disposal are not as well promoted by the government as they could be.Countries like the UK have done well with their waste management and also in how they deal with environmental problems. In the UK, they dispose of 100 million tonnes (one tonne is equal to 2,205lbs) of waste a year (www.defra.gov.uk) . Now this may sound like a lot, but if one figures out how much waste the UK would produce if it kept up the same rate of disposal but suddenly became a 22 mile island, the size of Bermuda, they would produce 65,700 tonnes of waste — all other things being equal.According to the Department of Sustainable Development, Bermuda produces 80,000 tonnes of waste a year. Can you see a difference? We produce almost 15,000 tonnes of waste more than the UK would if they were our size. So what is the UK doing that we are not? Recycling. We need to recycle more. Just recycling tin, aluminium and glass (TAG) is not enough. This is where the politics comes in. One of the main reasons that we don’t recycle here is because the cost would apparently be too much, especially with our unprecedented national debt.But with the known health and environmental effects from burning so much paper and plastic that could be recycled, then we should think twice about being limited to recycling just TAG. The environment does have a place in politics because if we don’t do enough to protect it or contain it, then much of politicians’ time, energy and funds will have to be spent to repair it. But then of course, the government could be tempted to listen to the old saying, “Let’s ignore the environment, then it’ll go away”. But we don’t really want that, do we?* Megan Sutcliffe is a 13-year-old student in Bermuda who is currently the Junior Management Team member at the Bermuda Environmental and Sustainability Task-force. She has been at BEST for just over a year and this is her first proper newspaper article.