THE University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, has expanded its project of collecting plastic bottles for recycling to 10 schools and two tertiary institutions, most of them in the vicinity of the campus.

At a function at Mona last Wednesday, representatives of the schools and institutions were presented with special bins to be placed at their schools, in which only plastic bottles will be deposited.

Director of UWI’s Environmental Management Unit Professor Elizabeth Thomas-Hope, in underscoring the importance of the project, said it is estimated that plastic bottles remain in the ground for between 450 to 700 years before they disintegrate.

“The very bottles that you use will still be at Riverton (City landfill) long after your grandchildren are gone,” she said.

Thomas-Hope asked the students to keep a tally of the number of bottles they collected at school so they could report their achievements to their environment clubs.

Dr Thelora Reynolds urged the teachers on hand to spend more time teaching students about their civic responsibility.

“By just putting the plastic where it belongs you will be saving the environment,” she told the students.

Del Crooks of Protect the Environment Trust, a company that collects plastic bottles for recycling, stressed that not only were plastic bottles non-biodegradable, they were also often burnt in fires at the Riverton City landfill, which contributed to respiratory illnesses.

She said in the long term the collected bottles will be used in the making of other products in Jamaica.

Asha Bobb-Semple, programme co-ordinator of the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica which sponsors the project, urged the students to become environment monitors in ensuring that plastics were placed in the special bins, and to encourage friends and family members to recycle their plastics.

Senior planning and research officer at the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) Garfield Murray, in expressing his support for the project, admitted that the NSWMA had struggled with environmental projects since 1982.

“I like this project because it is not only about recycling but also about changing the minds of young people,” he noted.

Murray also said the project could result in savings to the NSWMA because plastic makes up six per cent of the waste stream and it costs US$30 to handle a tonne of plastic waste.

Thomas-Hope told Career & Education that with the success of the project at UWI in which approximately 4,500 plastic bottles are collected per day, it was decided to expand the project to the schools as an outreach of the institution.

She said a public education campaign was tested to improve the possibility of success.

“To get the project launched, we needed special bins that will appeal to people because the objective is to change behaviour,” she said. “Here on the campus we tested the public education model by working through existing areas of interest. People tend to be influenced by the behaviour of their peers, so when people see their peers placing bottles in the bins, they go along with it.”

Schools and institutions receiving bins include Mona Preparatory, Mona Heights Primary, August Town Primary, Mona High, Papine High, Campion College, Stella Maris Preparatory, Hope Valley Experimental, the School of Hope, Excelsior High and the University of Technology and the Vocational and Technical Development Institute.