By Kenicia Francis
An eco-minded non-profit group collaborated with a number of Carnival troupes and fete organisers this year in an effort to make the festivities greener.
Good Humans 268 joined forces with Insane, DumzTree Family, and Myst, among others, to collect discarded drinks containers for recycling.
“What we’re hoping to accomplish is to get to the place where Carnival becomes eco in the context that all of the cans, bottles, glass and plastics that we use during the season do not go to the landfill,” the group’s President Joshuanette Francis told Observer.
“They go through a recycling process, and then a further step that I’m hoping that we can eventually get to is that all of the food scraps that we [discard] during the season go through a composting process,” she explained.
Her volunteers were seen collecting discarded waste from T-Shirt Mas’ and the Rise fete, as well as after Carnival Monday and Tuesday parades.
The team is also transitioning to using reusable laundry bags instead of plastic bags to collect the garbage, and wearing eco-friendly gloves.
At events, the teams manage waste collection and sorting, aiming to streamline the process and maximise recycling.
“All that we do is to give individuals with disabilities jobs. We want to do eco events, eco communities, a waste management course. We want to do recycling collection services at bars, restaurants, hotels.
“We are trying to solve the problem of the landfill from outside of the landfill. If we stop sending everything to the landfill, we’re not going to have the problem of it overflowing or on fire. The plan is going to take at least five to six years before we actually see the results because change takes time,” Francis explained.
She also plans to purchase a machine to turn glass into sand of various colours based on the bottles used.
The cans will be sent to recycling bodies for sorting and shipping, including removing caps from bottles and sorting them by type and size.
The aim is to create jobs for individuals with disabilities by involving them in tasks such as removing bottle caps and washing bottles.
“We have collected over 700,000 cans and bottles. I’m really excited, but all of this is to give individuals with disabilities jobs, so someone gets a job to remove every single bottle cap, and then they get to wash off the little dirt off of the bottle.
“You give somebody a job, you give them the possibility of changing their lives. At this point we don’t have the money for the machine, we don’t have the space, however instead of sending them to the landfill they can stay here because it’s probably going to be here for maybe six months to two years,” Francis explained.
In the meantime, the initiative is already diverting significant amounts of waste from Cooks dump, and improving cleanliness in Antigua and Barbuda.
