Aug. 5, 2008 — The St. Croix Recycling Association (STXRA) has a core group of volunteers who are serious about seeing the islands cleaned up and waste recycled, and they're looking for new members and helping St. Thomians organize a recycling association of their own.
Starting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, the St. Croix group will make a presentation at Charlotte Amalie High School on St. Thomas. Conducting the organizational meeting will be Lee Elvins, Julie Wright and Dee Osinski. It is free and open to the public.
More than a dozen people attended the association's monthly meeting Tuesday at the Florence Williams Public Library in Christiansted. STXRA is still in steering-committee mode, but soon it will elect officers and create bylaws, Osinski told the group.
The goal of the association is to establish a thriving community of recyclers dedicated to conserving resources through the implementation of comprehensive programs that result in waste reduction, reuse and recycling.
The grassroots group began in February 2007, organizing under the umbrella of the V.I. Resource and Development Council (RC&D), according to Susan Greenhalgh, STXRA secretary. It created an organizational structure and published a Going Green newspaper insert. The volunteers have established working relationships with existing recycling businesses to understand their current state and their needs for future growth.
"This was not easy for us to do," said Dee Osinski, one of the organizers and a Waste Management Authority (WMA) environmental educator.
Tuesday's meeting also included updates and information on FreeCycle, a website where members can exchange goods for free and avoid throwing things away. (For more information, click here.) Victor Martinez of EZ Recycling is giving the association 25 cents a pound for cans brought in from certain condo associations involved in recycling organized by STXRA.
At the group's October meeting, former senator Bent Lawaetz will explain a bottle bill introduced by him and passed in 1991. The money from it initially went to the Anti Litter and Beautification Program. Somewhere over the years the money collected on incoming bottles ended up in the General Fund, Osinski said.
STXRA is actively seeking members and working on plans for a membership drive. Two people joined Tuesday, bringing the association's membership to 21.
Call Julie Wright at 692-9632 for more information about the association.
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