Word on the Street: Bottle Collection by Bowen and Bowen

[Admin]

AmbergrisDaily's roving reporter keeps their ear to the ground! They came up with this bit of good news for today's edition of the Daily:

Bowen and Bowen, after many false starts, will soon be collecting the plastic bottles that contain their beverages. They have made a deal with an exporter and the plastic will be crushed, bailed and sent to Thailand where they will be used in various projects.

Bowen and Bowen will be setting up the collection points and hopes that all members of the community will support them in their drive to collect the bottles and get them off the island. It appears that many people have been using them as landfill and this is a preventable disaster to the environment.

The government has put a tax on the importers of Heineken and Red Stripe who are bringing in non returnable bottles, leaving the people of Belize to pay for their disposal. Bowen and Bowen have always made people pay a deposit which is repaid when the bottle is returned to the distributor. This is one of the reasons which they have heavily invested in their state of the art bottling factory. The bad news is that the drinkers of Heineken and Red Stripe will have to pay more for their pleasure, on the other hand this reporter is quite happy as he prefers lighthouse anyway.

Well done Bowen and Bowen AND Roving Reporter!
http://ambergrisdaily.com/island-stories/wordon-the-street-bottle-recycling-by-bowen-and-bowen/

[peterbj7]

I wonder if anyone's bothered to compare the cost (energy and financial) of doing this?  Much "recycling" is grossly inefficient.  I believe almost the only commodity where it does make sense is aluminum, where it's usually not done anyway.

[deadserious]

I read somewhere a long time ago that only 10% of "recycled" products actually get recycled.  The rest end up in a landfill somewhere anyway.  That number may be different these days, but regardless, if the bottles end up in Thailand's landfills instead of San Pedro's, makes sense to me.

[peterbj7]

The City of Oxford in  England makes a tremendous fuss about recycling.  Each house has I believe 6 different receptacles for different sorts of rubbish, and putting something in the wrong one is punishable by a large fine.  Quite absurd and unreasonable, as in most cases these acres of rubbish receptacles have to stay outside on the street where they can be used by any passer by.

Despite this, I was clearing out a house a few months ago and made several trips with my car to the local "dump".  There I watched the contents of all these recycling boxes, green, brown, blue, black all signifying different content, all being emptied into the same large collection vessels.  I had a camera with me, but I was being watched and I think if I'd got the camera out I wouldn't have made it off the site.

I don't BELIEVE recycling is utter nonsense (at any rate as commonly practiced), I KNOW it is.

[ragman]

Probably not feasible for San Pedro but:

One of the best uses of trash that I have seen (hold on tree huggers) are Trash to Energy Plants that burn trash to produce electricity.  There is one in our area and several in the State, that I visit several times a year on business.  They reclaim all metal, Ferris and nonferrous.  They even have a technology that separates coins from the trash.  Don't laugh they make all most $200K a year on coins in a plant I frequent quite often.  They generate electricity thereby using less of another fuel.

I know some will say that they pollute the air but modern plants have bag houses, precipitators and other technology that reduces this to a bare minimun.  The ash does have to go to a land fill but by then the volume is greatly reduced.  I can not understand why everyone fights the building of these plants in the States.  The only down side that I see is the traffic of trash trucks in the neighborhoods they are in. 

[GOD]

It will be nice to have the trash (plastic or other) actually make it to the garbage dump.  By giving a deposit on those items it ensures that people will pick them up and they will be taken to the dump or removed by a recycle company.

Not everything has to be re-used and then re-used again.  Funny how those opposed to recycling are so quick to put down whatever efforts are made to stop trash from being thrown in the street.  I applaud the effort and I think the environment around us will be better for it.

[ragman]

God, From the point of view of clearing some litter from the street it will be a success.  Of course other trash with out deposits will remain there.  From the "green" view it doesn't mount to much and may use more energy when you consider the process and transportation.

I like the idea of recycling but it should be done using a scientific foundation and common sense. Some recycled goods use more energy than the original manufacture of the goods they replace.  Now finding a useful way to dispose of trash and getting some good out of it, hell ya.

[JZB]

I think recycling those plastic bottles is a fantastic idea!  What I don't understand is why they are being shipped half way around the world to be recycled.  The energy used for transportation alone voids the whole 'environmentally friendly' aspect.  Last time I did some research (about a year ago)  there were big plastic recycling plants in both Guatemala and Mexico. 

It will be nice to have half the amount of garbage to clean up off the side of the road.