Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Reduce, reuse, recycle… In our hemisphere.

Many years ago, the “three R’s” were Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. But now – at least for the last twenty years or so – they mean “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.”

Has our little island of Jamaica adopted this mantra, over the years? I would answer with a resounding “NO.”

Garbage in Kingston Harbour last year. (Photo: Jamaica Gleaner)

The island has been slowly disappearing under growing piles of garbage  since the 1980s. It’s everywhere you look – on the roadsides, on beaches, in the sea, in gullies in the city and in the forested gullies of the countryside, in any public location. Even in tourist resorts. It’s one reason why I don’t enjoy going to the beach, any more – unless it’s one of those well-manicured hotel beaches. But in general, we Jamaicans like to spread our garbage – scatter it far and wide. We throw it out of the windows of buses and plush SUVs, without a care in the world. Even on our street, which is supposed to be in a fairly well-to-do uptown residential area, our posh neighbors virtually ignore garbage dumped on their doorstep and generously distributed by the ubiquitous stray dogs and street people. Eventually, they may tell their gardeners to go out and pick it up.

I get odd looks when I go outside the gate and collect garbage deposited on the sidewalk near our house. What on earth is she doing out there? our neighbors are thinking. But how long does it take to pick up a couple of plastic bottles? Five minutes or less?

It is mostly sheer laziness and carelessness. We like our houses and our cars to be tidy and clean, but beyond that – well, someone else can do it. It’s not our responsibility.

Littering is one thing. Getting citizens into the recycling mindset – and actually organizing it on a larger scale – is another.

So I was delighted to hear that a new recycling company has set up shop in Jamaica. Jamaica Recycles is backed by the U.S.-based International Recycling and Reclamation Limited. It will focus on plastic (the curse of the developing world) and paper, initially. Residents in the area around the huge Riverton City garbage dump on the edge of the city will benefit from collecting plastic from surrounding communities. Jamaica Recycles will also work with the Jamaican government’s National Solid Waste Management Agency (NSWMA), which has completely fallen down on the job in recent months (one suspects because they have no money to pay truck drivers to actually collect garbage). But that’s another story. I should add in NSWMA’s defense that this lack of resources is a chronic problem; and that the agency is trying to get a Plastic Container Separation Pilot Project under way, which is a start. They recognize the problem, but…

Executive director of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), Jennifer Edwards (second right), shows the types of plastic containers that will be collected under the Plastic Container Separation Pilot Project. (Photo: Rudolph Brown/Gleaner)

Dennis Soriano, co-owner and President of Jamaica Recycles. Harold Kristen is his partner. (Photo: Jamaica Gleaner)

In the next couple of years, all being well, Jamaica Recycles will expand into areas outside Kingston – in particular into western Jamaica. This would be most welcome. Garbage collection in many districts outside the city is even more unreliable. I do hope they make lots of money out of this venture.

Along with it, I would like to see a really meaningful public education campaign. Not “Don’t litter! It’s really naughty and bad.” A campaign which shows, as graphically as possible, the impact of this tide of trash on our health, on our still beautiful environment, on our precious, fragile tourism industry. Something punchy.

If you want to know more about the impact of land-based pollution – that is, all the nasty stuff we produce and then pour into our ocean and rivers and groundwater – then you should talk to Mr. Christopher Corbin, Program Officer for the Assessment and Management of Environmental Pollution at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Caribbean. If you want to find out what pollution is doing to the areas we are trying to protect, and to the creatures that live in them (in particular the fish that many depend on for a living) then talk to UNEP’s Alessandra Vanzella-Khouri, who administers the Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife program. Along with several media representatives, I met with these dedicated people last week at the UNEP office for a long and incredibly informative session. Much more on that to follow in future blog posts.

Christopher Corbin, Program Officer/Assessment and Management of Environmental Pollution, United Nations Environment Program Caribbean, speaking at Thursday’s press meeting at the program’s Kingston headquarters. (My photo)

One interesting project has emerged that is quite promising and innovative. It is called Island Cycle and it is a “Trash to Art” program organized by young Kingston-dwellers. The project hopes to offer inspiration – and income – to the residents of Riverton City. Look at the conditions in communities surrounding the Riverton City dump, and more about the project, in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=i6KulUD-MZk Also check out their crowd-funding site below, and support! 

I read somewhere that there are “other options” for garbage disposal. These are:

Generate – capturing useful material for waste to energy programs. Includes Methane collection, gasification, and digestion, and the term Recover.

Incinerate – high temperature destruction of material. Differs from gasification in that oxygen is used; differs from burning in that high temperatures consume material efficiently and emissions are controlled.

Devastate – to discard into the natural environment, or to “trash” the planet. Includes litter, landfill, burn barrels, unnecessary vehicle idling, and dumping discards onto land or into water.

Jamaica is much, much too good at the Devastate option. Do we really want to destroy our island with trash?

Some of our plastics ready for recycling. (My photo)

On a personal note: We already recycle much of the garbage from our Kingston home. We drop off all our plastics and glass at the Jamaica Environment Trust. We take our newspapers to the Jamaica Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (JSPCA), who are always in need. There are probably other places where you can take your trash; I understand that there is a recycling center in the western town of Negril, for example. These are the ones I know that would be handy for Kingston dwellers.

Jamaica Environment Trust: Earth House, 11 Waterloo Road, Kingston 10. Tel: (876) 960-3693. Email: jamentrust@cwjamaica.com. Website: http://www.jamentrust.org

JSPCA: 10 Winchester Road, Kingston 10. Tel: (876) 929-0320. Website: http://www.jspca.info/index.htm

United Nations Caribbean Environment Programme: 14-20 Port Royal Street, Kingston. Tel: (876) 922-9267-9. Email: rcu@cep.unep.org. Website: http://www.cep.unep.org

Related articles and websites:

http://www.epa.gov/recycle/ Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/rrr.html Recycling Guide: UK

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/New-recycling-company-opens-in-Kingston New recycling company opens in Kingston: Jamaica Observer

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20130116/business/business4.html New garbage recycling company launches in Kingston: Gleaner

http://www.select6.co/projects/trash-2-art-empowering-riverton-city#.UPrLY6V5m5Q Island Cycle Trash to Art Project: crowd-funding website

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120902/lead/lead10.html Recycle worry: Plastic bottles flood Jamaica: Gleaner

http://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/recycling-does-not-reduce-waste Recycling does not reduce waste: Small Footprint Family

http://www.jamentrust.org Jamaica Environment Trust

http://www.jspca.info Jamaica Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (JSPCA)

http://www.cep.unep.org United Nations Caribbean Environment Programme (CEP)

Jamaican Startup Island Cycle is Crowdfunding on Select 6 to Uplift… (prweb.com)

First Reduce, Then Reuse and Recycle Last (1800recycling.com)

No Matter What, Recycling Is Worth the Effort (yobynos.wordpress.com)

Garbage collected by the Jamaica Environment Trust volunteers at the 2012 beach clean-up. (Photo: JET website)