DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT TAKES RECYCLING CAMPAIGN TO NEVIS

Basseterre, St. Kitts, June 08, 2022 (SKNIS): The Department of Environment in St. Kitts in collaboration with the ICDF Taiwan Technical Mission will journey to the sister island of Nevis on Saturday, June 11, to launch a recycling campaign aimed at encouraging Nevisians to get into the practice of reducing, reusing and recycling waste.

“We are going to Nevis to encourage the Nevisians to come out and bring their recyclables, cans and plastic bottles. We are hoping by this drive that it starts to get people familiar and encourage them to make it a habit to save up their plastic bottles,” said Lynelle Bonaparte, Conservation Officer in the Department of Environment, during her June 08 appearance on Working for You. “There are incentives to encourage that behaviour and hopefully people see it as fun and join and volunteer. So we are just encouraging people as much as possible.”

The Conservation Officer added that once the project ends it is hoped that people will exert an effort to continue recycling without compensation.

“We are just hoping that after this project ends it becomes a part of us where persons are not dependent on an incentive but we just see the importance of it… and all of the benefits such as environmental, economic, social, and that persons see it as valuable to our country and that they join and volunteer,” she said.

Namayombo Mgonela, responsible for Marketing and Communications at the Solid Waste Management Corporation (SWMC) said that the recycling imitative in St. Kitts and Nevis is becoming more popular.

“For us as a Federation, the recycling movement is not an underground movement, it is something that has been advocated for, and it is something that has a lot of people involved in it. So you have different groups such as high school groups in terms of environmental clubs and then you have groups such as Clean Seas who have always been a part of this initiative,” she said. “It is not an underground movement. We have the voices, the manpower, so it is just for us to ensure that we have a project that can facilitate that. This project facilitates that, this project culminates all of these things and we now have space where we can, on certain days, have our plastic and can wastes collected and properly disposed of at the landfill, bailed out and shipped off the island.”

A similar launch took place in St. Kitts on Saturday, June 04 in recognition of World Environment, which was observed on Sunday, June 05. As it was in St. Kitts, the general public is encouraged to bring all clean plastic bottles and metal cans to the popup shop at Delta Petroleum where the top 10 contributors by weight can win valuable prizes.

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