Department of Environmental Health’s sorting and recycling scheme might introduce circular economy in Cayman Islands

Cayman Islands Department of Environmental Health (DEH) currently wavered away two forty-foot containers packed with 35,407 lbs of aluminium cans, Type 1 & 2 plastic containers, utilised tyres, lead acid batteries and 2,475 gallons of oil. The shipment was transferred from Sister Islands to Grand Cayman, where the differentiated and sorted, recycled materials would be stocked at the George Town Landfill and prepared for foreign export.

With the world moving towards sustainability, each nation, in its own way, is contributing to arriving at a better waste-less future. While plastic and other harmful wastes cannot be easily recycled, aluminium is the most easily recyclable non-ferrous metal which retains its original form even after going through infinite recycling cycles.

Director of DEH, Richard Simms, exclaimed: “Members of the Solid Waste teams from the Sister Islands and Grand Cayman have been working assiduously to coordinate efforts and satisfactorily complete this task.”

“We take pride in what we do, and we are also aware of the critical role we play to reduce the amount of harmful materials in the environment by making sure these materials are kept away from landfills,” he added to lay the department’s premise.

Among other waste materials, the most easily retrievable product is aluminium can, and it can simply be put through the recycling process to extract the raw material required to make new aluminium cans. The DEH has fourteen drop-off spots for only aluminium cans in Cayman Brac, like Spot Bay Primary School, West End Park, Cayman Brac Museum, Creek Infant School, Kirkconnell International Airport and many other market places.

Plastic containers have a different drop-off location than aluminium cans. Type 1 and 2 plastic can be dropped at The Fish, opposite the Alexandra Hotel.

It has been estimated only 3 per cent of waste generated on the three islands is being essentially recycled. Moreover, the census stated that only 36 per cent of residents vouched that they were sorting and recycling their household wastes.