Cherisse Moe

Chang­ing peo­ple's at­ti­tudes to­ward re­cy­cling is a chal­leng­ing task-but some­body has to do it. The non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion (NGO) It's Up To Me Nvi­ron­men­tal has tak­en up the man­tle. Its founder and pres­i­dent, John Lewis, be­lieves re­cy­cling should be every­body's busi­ness, as its name sug­gests. The NGO, en­dorsed by the British High Com­mis­sion, was launched in 2010 with an am­bi­tious goal: to dis­trib­ute sin­gle-stream re­cy­cling bins to 150,000 homes in five re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions-Diego Mar­tin, San Juan/Laven­tille, Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and Ch­agua­nas. In sin­gle-stream re­cy­cling, waste ma­te­ri­als are col­lect­ed in one bin to be sort­ed by a spe­cial­ty truck. Re­cent­ly, the group placed three re­cy­cling bins in the Ch­agua­nas and Mon­trose Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry Schools. The bins col­lect juice box­es, cans and plas­tic bot­tles. And while the bins have not yet reached house­holds, Lewis says the ini­tia­tive will help to sen­si­tise stu­dents to the im­por­tance of re­cy­cling and en­cour­age them to spread the word to their peers and par­ents. "Chil­dren are the best re­minders. If you promise a child to take them for ice-cream, ent they would re­mind you about it every day? "Well, it's the same thing with re­cy­cling. They will be con­stant­ly re­mind­ing their par­ents to do it too," he said, jok­ing­ly. Lewis says the stu­dents have so far been do­ing a com­mend­able job. "We pick up the bins twice, some­times three times a week, and they are al­ways filled, so it's prov­ing to be a suc­cess," he added. The NGO, which now owns two re­cy­cling trucks, al­so us­es the so­cial-net­work­ing site Face­book to help spread the word and cre­ate aware­ness about re­cy­cling. Soon, Lewis says, the group will be tar­get­ing malls and shop­ping ar­eas through­out Trinidad.

Jump on board

As the NGO con­tin­ues its dri­ve to ed­u­cate peo­ple about the ben­e­fits of re­duc­ing, reusing and re­cy­cling, Lewis says he's call­ing on both the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor to jump on board. "We have to thank Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ch­agua­nas East Stephen Cadiz, as he was re­spon­si­ble for fund­ing the re­cy­cling bins for the Mon­trose Pri­ma­ry School. But we want to get more in­di­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies to sup­port us." Cadiz told the T&T Guardian that he was hap­py to be a part of the project, as it is es­sen­tial to teach the younger gen­er­a­tion the im­por­tance of re­cy­cling. "It has to start in the schools. When you look at T&T and re­cy­cling, we don't have a very proud his­to­ry in that area. We need to get the young peo­ple in the habit of re­cy­cling. If we don't start it in the schools we will nev­er get it right," he said. "Even­tu­al­ly I want to have bins in all sev­en schools, both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary, in my con­stituen­cy, so that they too can be a part of the re­cy­cling pro­gramme." Lewis says he's al­so hop­ing to get fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance from the Green Fund to pur­chase spe­cial­ty trucks from the UK to sep­a­rate waste ma­te­r­i­al and pre­pare it for the re­cy­cling cen­tre. The cen­tre, which is be­ing built, will be in Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain. Lewis says the items will be stored there un­til the NGO gets fund­ing for the prop­er equip­ment to sell the ma­te­ri­als to cer­ti­fied re­cy­clers, both lo­cal­ly and abroad.

Need for leg­is­la­tion

The re­cy­cling in­dus­try is grow­ing. Pi­ran­ha In­ter­na­tion­al Ltd, which re­cy­cles elec­tron­ic waste, in­clud­ing mo­bile phones, com­put­ers, re­frig­er­a­tors and mi­crowaves, has been work­ing to make T&T a clean­er place since 2003. Di­rec­tor Bri­an Al­lum says the time has come for more pub­lic and pri­vate-sec­tor part­ner­ship if the in­dus­try is to reach its full po­ten­tial. The pri­vate Cou­va-based com­pa­ny re­ceives no fund­ing or as­sis­tance from the Gov­ern­ment, and Al­lum says al­though he has man­aged to keep it afloat, he runs "a very tight ship." He says the com­pa­ny, which has 15 per­ma­nent and about 40 part-time em­ploy­ees, al­so of­fers soft­ware de­vel­op­ment, re­cy­cling and waste-man­age­ment ser­vices. Peo­ple can hand over un­want­ed elec­tron­ic items to the com­pa­ny but Al­lum says they have to pay, since these items are con­sid­ered haz­ardous ma­te­ri­als. The cost varies de­pend­ing on the quan­ti­ty and con­di­tion of the items. Some ma­te­ri­als are re­cy­cled lo­cal­ly, and those which can't be re­cy­cled here are shipped to fa­cil­i­ties in coun­tries such as Cana­da, Switzer­land and Sin­ga­pore. Al­lum says there's al­so an ur­gent need for leg­is­la­tion to be im­ple­ment­ed and en­forced to en­sure that on­ly cer­ti­fied com­pa­nies are al­lowed to prac­tise re­cy­cling. "We need a lot more screen­ing of com­pa­nies of­fer­ing these types of ser­vices be­cause right now, every Tom, Dick and Har­ry is an en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist. Every­body is jump­ing on the band­wag­on. We need li­censed re­cy­clers and fa­cil­i­ties," he said. "Prod­uct stew­ard­ship is im­por­tant. This means that com­pa­nies must be held re­spon­si­ble for man­ag­ing their prod­ucts at the end of the prod­uct's lives. Put the onus on the man­u­fac­tur­ers. Right now, they are get­ting away scot-free. At the end of the day, Trinidad is an in­dus­tri­al coun­try and To­ba­go is tourist-based. Pro­tect­ing our en­vi­ron­ment goes hand in hand." Cit­i­zens, Al­lum says, al­so have their parts to play. "Every­one is be­com­ing a lot more aware of the en­vi­ron­ment now and get­ting in­volved in re­cy­cling. "But peo­ple need to ask some ques­tions. Con­sumers need to look for qual­i­fied and cer­ti­fied com­pa­nies be­fore they pass over their hard-earned cash. "Go and vis­it the fa­cil­i­ty and en­sure they are do­ing what they are telling you they do. Get some­one from the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty to ver­i­fy the com­pa­ny. There are a lot of fraud­sters pop­ping up." Can the re­cy­cling in­dus­try thrive in T&T? Al­lum be­lieves it can-once the prop­er checks and bal­ances are im­ple­ment­ed. "It's in its em­bry­on­ic stages right now. We need gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion and sup­port .We need in­cen­tives, reg­u­la­tions and struc­ture around what we do," he said.

Ben­e­fits:

Re­cy­cling saves the earth: Pa­per comes from trees-and many trees are cut down just to pro­duce pa­per. Re­cy­cling it re­duces the num­ber of trees that are cut down.

Re­cy­cling saves en­er­gy: It takes less en­er­gy to process re­cy­cled ma­te­ri­als than to process vir­gin ma­te­ri­als. For ex­am­ple, it takes a lot less en­er­gy to re­cy­cle pa­per than to cre­ate new pa­per from trees. The en­er­gy from trans­port­ing vir­gin ma­te­ri­als from the source is al­so saved. Sav­ing en­er­gy al­so has its own ben­e­fits, such as de­creas­ing pol­lu­tion.

Re­cy­cling helps mit­i­gate glob­al warm­ing and re­duce pol­lu­tion: By sav­ing en­er­gy in in­dus­tri­al pro­duc­tion through re­cy­cling, the green­house-gas emis­sions from fac­to­ries and in­dus­tri­al plants are less­ened and the use of fu­els that emit harm­ful gas­es dur­ing pro­duc­tion is al­so min­imised. Re­cy­cling non-biodegrad­able waste (rather than burn­ing it) will con­tribute a lot to help re­duce air pol­lu­tion and green­house gas­es that de­plete the ozone lay­er.

Re­cy­cling re­duces waste prod­ucts in land­fills: Land­fills are most­ly com­posed of non-biodegrad­able waste, which takes a long time to de­com­pose. Re­cy­cling can lessen the amount of waste that is put in­to land­fills and make the most out of these ma­te­ri­als. (Source: www.ben­e­fits-of-re­cy­cling.com/why­is­re­cy­clingim­por­tant.html).