JEEP, drink makers partner on plastic recycling, export initiative - Recycle Now target collections: One million bottles daily
Published:Friday | February 14, 2014 | 12:00 AM
Richard Browne, Business Reporter
A new waste recycling operation, in which the state has a principal stake alongside private beverage makers, will collect and export plastic bottles that Jamaica does not now have the technology to dismantle.
Under a three-year agreement and projected investment of more than $200 million in total, Recycle Now Jamaica is to backed primarily by the Government under its jobs project JEEP, as well as by private partners that include Seprod Limited, Wisynco Group, Pepsi Jamaica, Jamaica Beverages, GraceKennedy Limited, Lasco and Trade Winds Citrus.
Recycle Now is expected to create 300 jobs, according to Dr Omar Davies, minister of transport, works and housing.
JEEP - the Jamaica Emergency Employment Programme overseen by Davies' ministry - is the lead partner for the initiative and its project director, Lucille Brodber, will be the chairman of Recycle Now. The board will have six members drawn from the public and private sectors.
Despite media coverage suggesting otherwise, JEEP is in full operation, Brodber said.
"We are up and running and have not run out of gas - nor have the tyres fallen off," she said at the launch of the recycling operation.
PET bottles for export
The recycling initiative will seek to collect and process hundreds of millions of polyethylene terephthalate or PET bottles for export. These bottles, which do not decompose, can be found all over Jamaica, and account for about 14 per cent of the solid waste generated per year. PET bottles are used for soft drinks and other beverages.
Recycle Now is to be funded $75 million in yearly contributions from both sectors, with a "minimum" of $25 million coming from the private sector, and a grant of $50 million a year from Government, according to Wisynco Managing Director William Mahfood.
Most of the private sector's contribution has already been put on the table, "A total of $23.75 million has been secured so far," said Mahfood.
Recycle Now is to establish four collection centres across the island, which will handle up to one million PET bottles per day. Property for the centres will be provided by the Government through JEEP, while the private-sector partners will be responsible for the construction of a consolidation and logistics hub to process and compact the used bottles.
The collections will represent reclamation of 15 per cent of total waste, according to Davies. The bottles will be compacted to medium density and then "exported to markets such as China and the USA," to earn foreign exchange, the minister said.
The plan is to increase that percentage to 25 per cent in the second year and 35 per cent in the third of Recycle Now's operation. The entity is eventually expected to be self-sustaining through its export earnings, with surpluses reinvested into the programme.
But Davies said there would be no "crowding out" of the existing private-sector entities engaged in similar activity.
"Simply put, if and when the target for year three is achieved, there will be remaining two-thirds of the bottles which can be collected by the existing private operators or by any additional entities which will enter the sector," Davies said.
The initiative, which will also have a strong public-education component to increase recycling and environmental awareness, got endorsement from Diana McCaulay, CEO of Jamaica Environment Trust.
"This is, without hesitation, really good news. We fully support this initiative," said McCaulay.
"The trick is not at the launch, but to keep it going over many years."