Recycling Partners of Jamaica (RPJ) is hoping the popularity of dancehall deejay Agent Sasco (real name Jeffrey Campbell) will help get its message to a much wider audience over the next 12 months.

The company announced on Monday that Sasco has been tapped to be its first-ever brand ambassador.

“We need help. RPJ has been around since 2014 and we have only been able to do so much because we are not reaching out to the masses that we need to get to,” said RPJ Marketing and Public Relations Manager Candice Ming. “We need people who actually believe in what we are doing and who are able to get the masses on board to make a positive change from within their personal space.”

She argued that Sasco, an artiste who transcends generations, was the perfect person for RPJ’s history-making decision. “We are very grateful he is accepting this new role,” said Ming.

Sasco, well recognised for his role in popularising the new era of dancehall and reggae, shared his joy in being selected for his new role.

“[Recycling] is something I’ve been passionate about for some time and it is just a matter of alignment. The alignment and the synergy is definitely there and it is something that I am more than happy to do,” he said.

In his role as brand ambassador, Sasco will be involved in several projects aimed at getting more people to engage with the RPJ and get into the habit of recycling. One of these initiatives will be the RPJ’s launch of a recycling depot in St Thomas. That is tentatively scheduled for later this month or early February.

Sasco is particularly looking forward to working with the RPJ in getting its message across to young children, as he believes it is best to form good habits early in life. “Overall, [we need] to have a proper recycling initiative in schools as they generate a significant amount of plastics per day,” he said.

For the artiste, recycling is part of a wider goal of doing things that can clearly help the environment, actions that will benefit the country and its citizens.

Ming agreed.

“We just want more persons to come on board and get into the business of having two garbage bins — one for plastic bottles and one for regular garbage,” she urged.