Plans afoot to set up recycling plant in Dominica

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria, local residents Richard Rognlie and Kayla James-Rognlie of Salty Dominica approached the Rotary Club of Portsmouth with the idea to build a plastics shredder and an extrusion machine to help rid the environment of excessive plastic waste.

Salty Dominica (an organization dedicated to teaching the world eco friendly, environmentally responsible and sustainable activities) and the Rognlies, with the encouragement of the Rotary Club, donated components for the shredder. Several months later, Rory Dickens, a member of the charity All Hands and Hearts, joined the effort.

In April 2018, Dickens founded his own charitable foundation, Recycle Rebuild. It is through this organization that he formed a working partnership with the Rotary Club of Portsmouth to develop and build a plastic recycling facility, utilizing the source design developed by David Hakkens Precious Plastics Global Initiative in Holland. This is an open source design resource available to communities.

Dickens, who holds a Masters in Architecture, brought his design ingenuity to manufacturing a prototype shredder mainly out of local scrap components. This allows for the manual shredding of most types of plastic, which can then be turned into products.

His effort recently received $50,000 donation from the Rotary Club of Grenada, in partnership with the Rotary Club of Portsmouth, to create a fully self-sustainable recycling plant in Dominica over the next 6 to 9 months. Dickens describes the venture as “exciting,” and revealed that his organization will seek additional funding to establish a central recycling center in the Portsmouth area within the next six months, at which point the plant would be run by locals.

“We’ve acquired that money, and now we’re looking for spaces and people to really move this project forward…. The budget is set for a six-month timeline… but this is a long-term project… and we would expect things to be set up within the next three months, and then we would have a shop front where people can come and buy recycled products, but at the same time, also have a space where people could bring their old plastics, and trade them in,” he explained. “And then, we’ll slowly expand and transition to a business. We want to transition to a business where it is run by a core group of Portsmouth locals, and they manage it and run it on its own, as its own entity.”

This funding, he elaborated, will help to make rapid production of recycled products more achievable. Thus, Recycle Rebuild is expected to eventually expand collection of waste and production of recycled goods to Paix Bouche and surrounding districts.

Dickens advised that Dominicans be mindful of the value of plastic, which is often considered waste. He stated that “economy of sustainability” can be established through the recycling of plastic.

“Plastic is worth money. There is a value. Metal is pulled from the ground. Plastic is oil. And we’re actually kind of lucky. Everyone sees it as negative that trash is turning up on the beach, but we’ve actually got a raw material, turning up on your doorstep every day,” Dickens said. “It’s just sitting there, and people are burning it because it’s a problem; but what if it’s an opportunity, and that opportunity can generate an income for a family, or the community can thrive off it?”

Dickens noted that pieces of jewellery made from recycled plastic have already garnered interest from foreigners.