The V.I. Water and Power Authority has one plan to deal with the hills of trash created by V. I. Residents: burn it. The Recycling Association of the Virgin Islands has a different plan: reuse it.
Volunteers were making progress on that plan Saturday in the parking lot of Cost-U-Less on St. Croix.
Association volunteers were building two 4-by-4-foot bins that will be used to collect cardboard from residents for recycling back in the states.
Scott Ramsey, general manager at Cost-U-Less, has had the recycling of residential cardboard on his mind for years — ever since the store moved from the west of St. Croix to island center, and the store purchased a cardboard bailer.
"Our efforts met with little success until we teamed up with the Recycling Association," he said. "They really helped get the word out."
The program became so successful that Cost-U-Less had to shut it down a couple of months ago. The bins collecting the cardboard were not built to hold the amount being deposited, and they were very difficult to empty.
Again, the Recycling Association came to the rescue.
Colleen Sullivan, an action group leader for the association, worked Saturday with volunteers Scott Johnson and Jeff Lawlor to build new bins. The bins were almost complete when they left at 4 p.m. They expected to do the final touches on Sunday.
"We should be up and running and able to accept cardboard from residents again at the beginning of next week," Ramsey said.
Cardboard recycling isn’t the only program the association is trying to kick back into life. Aluminum will be on the agenda when the association has its regular monthly meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Florence Williams Library in Christiansted. Association members plan to brainstorm about getting the Boys and Girls Club aluminum-recycling program going again. The association hopes to get that program — with its collection site at Catherine’s Rest, next to the Public Works garage — up and running by November, Sullivan said.
The Recycling Association is a volunteer organization made up of individuals, businesses, government agencies, non-government agencies, organizations and clubs. It was initiated in St. Croix in February 2007 through a project measure enacted by the V.I. Resource Conservation and Development Council. It was expanded to St. Thomas and St. John in August 2008.
