Rattray-Wright mixes environment, entertainment

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Yolande Rattray-Wright is proud to claim many firsts in Jamaican entertainment. Among them are the Celebrity Walkathon, all-female concert format and all-black male model/exotic dancers events.

"I am not afraid to take risks," she told The Gleaner.

Her latest round of risk-taking steps outside strictly staging events of the song, dance and catwalk kind, but still keeps an entertainment connection. As managing director of Earthbound Biodegradables Food Packaging Company Ltd, Rattray-Wright is involved in the manufacturing of sugar cane and bamboo cooked-food containers, which replace the accustomed polystyrene foam packaging, commonly called by the brand name Styrofoam. In addition, she does business with a company which produces cups made from corn and straws from wheat.

With these items, she claims another set of firsts - the Caribbean's first eco-festival, a music event with an environmental bent, held in Maggotty, St Elizabeth, in early July, and the launching of a recycling initiative with telecommunications firm Flow and the National Solid Waste Management Authority in late September. Under the latter, two bins dedicated to different kinds of garbage, in preparation for recycling, have been set up in New Kingston.

Rattray-Wright points out that the eco-festival grew out of her efforts to link the Earthbound programme with entertainment events in Jamaica. She reels off a list of concerts that the polystyrene foam replacement has been utilised at, among them stagings of the Flashpoint Film Festival, the Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival, Reggae Sumfest, A St Mary Mi Come From, and Fi Wi Sinting.

Leading by example

"I decided, instead of trying to get all these festivals to go enviro conscious, let me back up my own talk. I am in the music business and the two came together," Rattray-Wright said. "It was a first in the Caribbean, but it is done in California and Europe." She points out, too, that with many entertainment events taking place in Jamaica they produce a lot of physical garbage.

Rattray-Wright became acutely environmentally aware when she lived in Toronto, Canada, at the time in the early 2000s when there was a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) scare. Like everyone else taking the public transportation system she wore a face mask, and even saw one woman collapse from the illness. She then started doing some research and "the little reading opened up a whole new world".

She learnt about the high levels of garbage globally, to the extent that it seems "garbage is taking over the world". However, she also learnt about the food packaging alternative to polystyrene foam.

Rattray-Wright returned to Jamaica in 2006 and says "I fell in love all over again". In addition to the renewed passion for her country came the drive to alleviate garbage problems in Jamaica, hence the Earthbound activities.

In addition to the bins in New Kingston - to which Rattray-Wright hopes to add more - the Jamaica's Environment-Off Balance infomercial was also done with Flow. "I think Jamaica learns from a hands-on approach," Rattray-Wright said, noting that the video is used in educational institutions and branches of at least one major business.

She emphasises that proper garbage disposal cannot be left entirely to the Government, and says that Earthbound's products are "eco-friendly, earth friendly, health friendly, solid-waste friendly".

And she would like them to be used by the business of entertainment. "I want promoters to call me and say 'Yolande, bring your bins. Show me what you've got. Teach me'," Rattray-Wright said.