Recycle San Pedro Belize launches glass pulverizing project on Ambergris Caye

Recycle San Pedro Belize continues to find ways to keep La Isla Bonita clean and now the team has taken up a new initiative of pulverizing glass. This project consists of residents of San Pedro dropping off their empty glass bottles, of all shapes and sizes, at a designated location just south of SP Hardware, next to the Garifuna Black and White Restaurant. The collected glass bottles are crushed by a pulverizing machine that reduces the glass into a fine sand that can be used in other ways.
The land presently used as a collection site belongs to Gus Tobany, who wanted to support the Recycle San Pedro Belize team in their efforts to keep the island clean. “The San Pedro Town Council, especially Mayor Daniel Guerrero, Councilor’s Tito Alamilla and Gary Grief are working closely with us to get a permanent piece of land in the San Juan Area,” he said.
According to co-founder of Recycle San Pedro Belize, Ray Tyree, the pulverized glass is used for making building blocks, bricks, pavers and Water Filter Systems. They expect to pulverize the glass on a monthly bases. Plastic can also be dropped off at the location as the team is also looking at purchasing a plastic granulated melting machine. “I want to thank each and every person for taking the various steps to put waste in its correct place, for recycling and practicing waste control on our beautiful,” said Tyree.
Tyree has been living on the island for a while and owns a business and a football team. Together with his business partner, Emeliano Rivero, they believe it is time to make a difference on the island. While searching for ways on how they can help with recycling and waste control on the island, they learned of Luis Garcia from Eco-Friendly Solutions and Gorge Aldana from Belize Interlocking Blocks & Pavers. Tyree and Rivero partnered with them creating Recycle San Pedro Belize, and launched their first project to recycle plastic bottles. The project consists of businesses adopting large garbage barrels where people can discard plastic water and soda bottles. The lids of these bottles are being recycled and used by Belize Interlocking Bricks & Pavers to make bricks and the bottles are sent to Bowen & Bowen where they go to a recycling company in Ladyville, Belize District and other parts of the country to be shredded and repurposed.
Anyone can drop off their glass at the secured area, however, the team asks residents to please be conscientious when doing so and not just throw it in a pile. The next glass crushing is tentatively scheduled for Friday, June 15th. To learn more about Recycle San Pedro Belize and the great work there are doing on the island you can follow them on Facebook.