Recycling effort paying off THE RECYCLE for Life project is reporting success in its drive towards building a culture locally of recycling and litter reduction, following its launch last year. An industry coalition comprising private companies in the food, soft drink and beverage industry, encouraged by the stance taken by Government on the issue of solid and hazardous waste management, came up with a new initiative that has resulted in the development by Call Associates Consultancy Limited of a proposal on litter reduction and recovery of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) bottles. Major private sector sponsors of the programme are Caribbean Bottlers (Jamaica) Limited, Jamaica Beverages, Jamaica Drink Company Limited and Pepsi Cola (Jamaica) Bottling Company Limited. Other contributing members are Grace Kennedy and Company Limited, Seprod Limited, Peake Bottling Company Limited, McDonald's; Wisynco Trading and West Indies Synthetics. The project's success so far is due to extensive research done on models being used by successful litter reduction programmes in Puerto Rico, a deposit refund system in Barbados and other programmes in Australia, Britain, the Bahamas and United States, said a release on the RFL programme. HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS RFL's public education programme targets schools and householders islandwide, to build awareness and to encourage the recycling of PET bottles, which is the main focus in the first phase of the project. It reports collections of 24 million PET bottles with over 800 partners consisting of schools, churches, non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations and informal recyclers who collect PET containers. RFL partners are paid $10 per kilo for loose PET bottles if they are delivered directly to the recycling plant in White Marl, St. Catherine. If the bottles are collected by RFL, the partner is paid $8 per kilo. The bottles, which are 100 per cent recyclable, are sorted and shredded at the plant and shipped to the United States, Canada and China for the manufacture of T-shirts, lining for carpets, sleeping bags, automotive parts and other consumer products. RFL executive director, Bevon Morrison says that RFL's recycling programme has provided a source of income in poor communities and noted that one serious PET bottle collector earns, on an average, approximately $29,000 per month. RFL's plans for expansion includes the establishing of collection depots in rural areas such as Montego Bay, Mandeville, Negril, Ocho Rios and Port Antonio. HOW TO IDENTIFY PET BOTTLES PET is a strong light weight shatter-resistant form of plastic used to make screw-top bottles for water, soft drinks, juice, salad dressing, cooking oil, and non-food products such as mouthwash and cleaning agents. The bottles have the recycle symbol with the numeral one in the centre.
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