The recycling station at Camana Bay has moved to a new home in the north parking lot of Emeritus Drive, in the car park near the Paradise Mural on the northeast side of the Esterley Tibbetts Highway underpass.
The bins, supplied by the Cayman Islands Department of Environmental Health, include receptacles for glass, paper and cardboard, plastic, tin and aluminium cans.
All recyclables should be removed from bags and be cleaned prior to placing in the designated bins.
Aside from glass, which can be crushed and reused locally, all recyclables collected by the Department of Environmental Health are processed at the recycling area at the George Town Landfill prior to being shipped overseas.
In Grand Cayman, there are two main options for recycling glass. If your bottles are from the Cayman Islands Brewery, you can take your empties to the Brewery to receive a discount on your next purchase. The Brewery sterilises the bottles and then reuses them for their locally brewed craft ales and lagers.
All other glass and ceramics deposited in the recycling bins is put into a glass-crushing machine that reduces the bottles and jars to small particles. The crushed glass is sold for use on island to companies like Flowers Block, which mixes the crushed glass material with aggregate and cement to produce concrete paver stones. These pavers were used for the walking and bike paths at Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa and can be spotted on the sidewalks of Camana Bay.
Tin and aluminium can be recycled infinitely, making cans a more sustainable choice to paper and plastic containers that lose quality during the recycling process and have a limited lifespan. Aluminium takes about 500 years to oxidise in a landfill, but can be recycled into a new product in as little as 60 days.
In Cayman, only plastic types 1 and 2 are targeted for recycling. Plastics are typically coded, with a number “1” through “7” stamped in a triangle somewhere on the plastic. Although plastics 3-7 are not included in recycling at this time, in the future these materials, which have a high heating value, will be recovered for electricity production at Grand Cayman's planned waste-to-energy facility.
Eligible recyclables include office paper, newspaper and inserts, brochures and flyers, magazines, boxboard, and corrugated cardboard. All cardboard should be flattened before being placed in the designated bins. Items which have been contaminated by food such as paper plates, coffee cups, pizza boxes, waxed paper or wet paper, should be discarded in the garbage instead.
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