PARTNERING with Jamaica Recycles, Sandals South Coast has taken a bold step towards better handling its waste material with the installation of a recycling baler unit.

Balers are machines used to compact and bind, or “bale” waste or recyclable material for improved ease of handling, transportation, storage and recycling.

The baler unit at Sandals South Coast, which was installed by the team from Jamaica Recycles, will bale cardboard, white plastic (high-density polyethylene or HDPE), clear plastic (polyethylene terephthalate or PET), and aluminium cans. Each completed bale is expected to be approximately 450 pounds of plastic and 1,200 pounds of cardboard.

Jamaica Recycles currently offers a recycling baler service to 27 hotels on the island’s coasts, from Negril to Ocho Rios. Following the installation of the unit at Sandals South Coast, business development manager at Jamaica Recycles Richard Campbell conducted a demonstration, with key resort personnel, regarding how to operate the unit.

“We’re excited about the partnership with Sandals South Coast and the reception we received from the team there. It’s an ideal initiative for the resort as, based on what we’ve seen, they already had a culture of recycling,” said Campbell.

He noted that his team at Jamaica Recycles is confident that the recycling baler unit will work for Sandals South Coast and external entities in the area, primarily because this model will allow the resort to contain as much recyclables as possible and efficiently move same.

“For us, the transportation is much cheaper and more efficient, and it allows the hotel to accommodate a larger amount of its own recyclable material, as well as materials from other outlets, without taking up much space,” reasoned Campbell.

He explained that once the unit is installed and the relevant training completed, the resort will be responsible for separating recyclables internally and placing them in their respective holding areas.

Once the bale, or compressed material, is made and ejected from the machine the bales will be collected and transported — along with those from other hotels along the route — to the recycling factory in Kingston where they are opened up and rebaled into larger bales. They are then loaded onto containers and shipped overseas to various recycling mills and manufacturing companies which use the raw material to make new products.

Campbell noted that so far the installation of the units in hotels has proven to be successful, but he underscored that the responsibility is that of the hotels to ensure the system works by maximising use of the equipment and the amount of material recycled.

According to Gavin Palmer, corporate manager for environment, health and safety at Sandals Resorts International (SRI), this partnership signifies a continuation of the environmental efforts already underway within the Sandals resorts.

Palmer noted that Sandals Resorts in Barbados had baler units installed since inception and that a similar unit was recently installed at Sandals Royal Caribbean in Montego Bay, St James.

He expects that the installation of the recycling baler unit will cut the amount of waste going out of the resort by around 50 per cent.

Palmer pointed out that there is also a substantial cost reduction benefit to having the unit installed. “For each compactor that we move, the cost is significant — therefore reducing the amount of compactor units going out each month will result in cost savings for us,” said Palmer.

“The installation of the baler unit will assist us in better handling and storing recyclables and in drastically diverting a lot of the waste that goes to the landfill,” added Palmer as he underscored that the company continues to work towards reducing its carbon footprint.

In the meantime Vilma Smith, environmental, health and safety manager at Sandals South Coast, said: “Currently the resort produces nine 30-yard compactor units of garbage per month along with two uncompact units that are collected by Jamaica Waste Disposal and taken directly to the landfill.”

She noted that while the resort has spearheaded several initiatives geared at waste separation, finding a partner consistent in collecting the recyclable items has proven very difficult and so the resort is often left with loads of recyclable materials that eventually overflow the designated holding areas and become unsightly.

According to Smith, in addition to collecting recyclables from Sandals South Coast, there are plans in place to extend the services of the baler unit to select partner schools which have already been identified. “The schools utilise a lot of plastics and juice cans, and well-supported recycling programmes within the schools are few,” she said. “Our environment, health and safety guardian team would, therefore, go into the schools to educate and help the students to set up proper waste separation programmes. Once the programmes start we will collect the items and have them baled,” added Smith.

Jamaica Recycles ships between 600-800 tonnes of recyclable material overseas each month.