This week marks National Recycling Week 2011 from November 7 to November 13th. Join us to reduce, reuse and recycle! The Environmental Association of St. Thomas and St. John (EAST) and the Virgin Islands Conservation Society (VICS) ask that you join us Sunday, November 13, 2011 at Reef Fest 2011 on Brewer’s Bay to learn more about us and what you can do to recycle in the Virgin Islands.
Every year we throw away many tons of recyclable material that could be diverted from our landfills. The average American discards 4.6 pounds of garbage every day, according to the National Recycling Coalition, and most of that garbage ends up in landfills where it is compacted and buried. The average Virgin Islander discards more than 11 pounds of garbage daily. A large percentage of our solid waste is made of recyclable material such as aluminum cans, glass, paper, plastics and organic matter. Currently only aluminum cans are available to be recycled here on a daily basis by the public. A small fraction of scrap metals and e-waste are recycled by the Waste Management Authority and a few private firms while most organic matter which could be composted is buried in the landfill. Virgin Islanders get no benefit when we bury and discard a valuable resource, our trash, and the environment suffers in the end.
Please join us at Reef Fest 2011 at Brewers Bay from noon to 5 p.m. and find out how you can adopt an EAST/ VICS recycling bin for your community organization, school or group. In the past year we have collected over 1000 pounds of aluminum cans and have plans underway to work with the hotels in collecting more cans for recycling. Every can collected goes towards our fund to buy more bins for the community to adopt and use. However you must collect the cans and bring them to Sanitary Trashmoval Services (STS) located at No. 3 Lower John Dunko on St. Thomas for proper recycling so that we can continue with our adopt a recycling bin program and bring more bins to the islands.
Editor’s note: Jason Budsan is the president of the Environmental Association of St. Thomas and St. John (EAST).
