We enjoy recycling opportunities including aluminium, plastic, glass, cardboard and paper, tyres, batteries and others. It is my understanding that the Sister Islands do not have collection and recycling for glass, plastic, cardboard or paper. Can you confirm whether this is true and, if so, find out why not? They may be small, but both islands appear to be growing a Mount Trashmore of their own.
Auntie’s answer: Yes, it is true. A Department of Environmental Health (DEH) official confirmed that for now only batteries and aluminium cans are recycled on the Sister Islands.
Logistical issues are preventing the recycling of other items, the official explained, including factors such as storage and shipping.
The DEH has set up recycling bins at spots throughout Cayman Brac and Little Cayman and the batteries and cans are routinely collected and shipped to Grand Cayman, where they are baled and exported.
The recycling options on the Sister Islands may expand at some point, though. The official added that the DEH “hopes to be able to provide increased recycling services to the Sister Islands in the foreseeable future”.
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There is no public recycling in Bodden Town, North Side or East End. So we have to drive ours to Savannah, often finding the bins too full.
As a resident of the Sister Islands, I can tell you that batteries are only collected once or twice a year. Making it difficult to recycle due to the incredibly long time we have to store them until they are collected. Also, cans are not recycled at all. The DEH brought the blue bins to start recycling cans, however cans have never been collected.
A suggestion is to approach the dive resorts there, some of which send their boats over here to G.C. throughout the year for maintenance and see if they would contribute to transport a load of batteries , which could then be delivered to either the land-fill drop off , or a secondary private re-cycler, who ships them to the U.S. I’d happily volunteer a truck ( here on G.C.) to move them. This way, the acid and more importantly , dissolved lead isn’t getting into the ground. But a question beckons , what has been happening to toxic waste in the sister islands the last half a century? The answer to this may not be what you would like to hear. Little Cayman is touted as eco-friendly and environmentally conscious , but light is being cast on a problem that says otherwise .
I don’t know about recycling, but beach clean-ups are desperately needed on Little Cayman. The amount of plastic drifting onto the beaches there is heartbreaking. If you walk north of Point of Sand where the iron sore starts there is enough plastic to fill 5 dump trucks and the whole north coast is exactly the same. Can we start sending prisoners there on day trips to pick up the garbage? I attempted to pick some up on my own but a team of 20/30 people is needed with trucks/dumpsters to move it all.