Hotels along the North Coast can now actually recycle their waste, which should eventually reduce garbage entering the landfill by 200 tonnes every week, according to Minott Services Ltd.

The company recently started partnering with hotels mainly in Montego Bay and recycling companies in Kingston to transport separated garbage for recycling. It’s the latest attempt by Minott to incorporate some aspect of recycling in their business of garbage haulage.

“We are actually giving them a conduit and an opportunity to have them recycle. We will take the stuff and send it to recycling plants and centres in Kingston that will actually recycle material,” said David Minott, managing director at Minott Services, in a Jamaica Observer interview at his office on Retirement Road in Kingston.

The partners in Kingston include Jamaica Recycles, which will receive the paper and plastic, and Ecoclean which recycles glass. Prior to the start of the project some hotels would separate their garbage into recyclable waste. Invariably, however, it ended up in the landfill at Retirement in Montego Bay as one heap of garbage, effectively defeating the purpose.

Minott and the recycle partners make money from the venture mostly by charging for the rental of balers.

“Minott makes nominal money from the pickups honestly. We charge a small rental for the containers and a small fee for pickups. It is not to make money from this venture, but to promote a sustainable approach to waste disposal for the hotel sector by providing a service for moving the recyclables. We make money off the other non-recyclable garbage,” he reasoned.

Minott charges $2,700 a month for rental of the glass bins/receptacles and $1,600 a month for collection of the bins/receptacles. Minott doesn’t charge for pickup of the bales as that is covered by Jamaica Recycles, which rents balers from $26,000 to $30,000 per month.

Minott Services hopes to extend this project throughout Montego Bay, Negril and the entire north coast in the next 12 to 18 months.

Hotels initially involved in the project include Riu, Half Moon, Tryall, Palladium, Iberostar and Hyatt. However, it also hauls recycled material from the Hendrickson family-owned hotels in Kingston, including the Jamaica Pegasus, Courtleigh, and Knutsford Court Hotel.

“We are getting good feedback and we want to get into Jewels, Sandals and Couples ,” he said.

To satisfy demand the company added Hiab grapple trucks which grabs bales, roll off trucks, and a rear loader truck to its north coast route. The trucks will haul bales of cardboard and plastic as well as bins of glass from hotel clients’ premises in the north coast on a weekly basis to the facilities of processing partners in Kingston. Balers will be installed by Jamaica Recycles and Minott will provide the steel bins and steel mesh cages for containment.

“The potential market is 20 to 30 per cent of 800 tonnes a week of garbage, so about 200 tonnes of paper, plastic and glass eventually,” he said about the hopes of growing the project.

Minott wants the island to emulate countries within Scandinavia in which most waste is recycled. “Zero waste to landfill,” he said. “It sounds ridiculous to us now, but …we can see a time when 70 to 80 per cent of the waste is reused and doesn’t go to landfill.”

Some 12 years ago, the company started Minott Recycling, which failed, as costs per tonne of recyclable garbage exceeded income from its export.

“By that time we were shipping it out at about US$140 a tonne and we were getting US$120 a tonne. So it was a loss-maker from the get-go,” he said, adding that the company had had no plans to re-enter recycling.

Key individuals which helped to make the project a reality include Frank Sondern from Riu, general manager; Andrew Dous, environmental manager at Half-Moon; Shaku Ramcharan at Tryall; and Barry Hazle, marketing manager, Minott Services.

“They spurred us,” he said.