By Erica James-King, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
APPROXIMATELY US$1 million will be spent to establish a waste recycling plant in Montego Bay, St. James. Major players in the city's business and tourism industries are hoping it will go a far way in solving the worrying garbage problem.
Making the disclosure in an interview with The Gleaner yesterday, Phillip Corrigan, the president of the United States-owned Caribbean Paper Recycling Company which is spearheading the venture, said the new facility will generate scores of new job opportunities for residents of St. James.
He said that by month-end, a decision will be taken on where the recycling plant is to be located. He also expressed confidence that the facility would be up and running by June.
"We have not yet made up our minds on where the recycling firm will be sited, but we are doing site assessment now and by the end of January, that decision should have been made," Mr. Corrigan told The Gleaner following yesterday's 'Greening Through Recycling Conference', which was held in Montego Bay. He said the plant will take up to three months to be constructed.
RETIREMENT
The community of Retirement on the outskirts of Montego Bay, where the municipal dump is located, is one of the sites under consideration by Caribbean Paper and Garbage Disposal Sanitation Systems Limited (GDSS), which will be teaming up on the establishment of the recycling centre.
"It would be economically feasible for us to locate our operations near the Retirement disposal site since people are already trucking to the site," said Mr. Corrigan. "However, because of the terrain of the land it would require a lot of grading, and that could be a costly effort. So we are also assessing other sites."
The recycling facility will initially process 300 tonnes of used cardboard, newspaper and assorted office paper waste daily. The converted material will be shipped overseas where it will be converted to new paper products.
The management of the two companies envisage that 70 people will be employed initially in Montego Bay. That includes some 15 base staff, drivers for compactors, persons involved in collection and cleansing of the waste and those involved in shipping the product.
News of the recycling plant comes amidst a flood of calls from a wide cross section of the society, including the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce, for the local authorities to clean up the city in order to enhance the tourism product.
