Recycling poses numerous challenges - Reis

Recycling poses numerous challenges – Reis

Jan 31, 2013 News

Recycling, while needed, is not on the cards anytime soon. This is according to Banks DIH Chairman, Mr Clifford Reis when he addressed the 60th Shareholders’ Reception in New Amsterdam over the weekend.
Mr Reis, responding to a question by the Mayor of New Amsterdam, Claude Henry, about the plethora of plastic bottles in the environment, stated that there are several hurdles that

Popular Banks DIH beverages being displayed at the shareholders’ meeting.

stand in the way of a recycling plan.
While there has been talk of a piece of land in Georgetown to be used for a recycling plant, Reis questioned what happens to Berbice, Essequibo and Bartica. “You cannot have environmental management for one section”, he noted.
Currently, he noted, the logistics are being worked out and ideas are being entertained. The idea of someone collecting plastic bottles, Banks DIH chipping it up and shipping it to China, has been thrown on the floor.
“Our recommendation is for Banks to crush (the bottles) and then you can put small satellite plants and put them into a container and they (China) will collect it, but then the question comes in. How does the entrepreneur (the person who takes the bottle to Banks DIH) get paid”.
“When you come in you want your dollar, so who will fund that dollar?” he questioned. “And secondly, when you take it to the plant, the guy has to chip it, and he gotta get his money back too—production costs—It’s a whole set of logistics”.
He stated that the Trinidad and Barbados governments both had this idea on the cards but shelved it after careful analysis and thought.
The Chairman then questioned what was really more of a threat to our environment—the plastic bottles or plastic bags. He cautioned that the latter is more prevalent and can do more harm to the environment.
“What happens to the sardine and corned beef tins, the batteries, Styrofoam—so they are focusing on the beverage bottles—why are they focusing on beverage alone? There are so many other items on the list which affect the environment”.
He said that there has to be a universal discussion. “Now people ask why the United States is working, but they have a yellow container for newspaper, a blue [container] for garbage and a red for plastic…Barbados instituted laws of penalties for littering…”.
Reis is hoping that within the next six months, something “workable” will be arrived at to solve the recycling problem.