SANDY BANK PRIMARY TAKES TOP RECYCLING PRIZE
Executive Director of the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo), Dr Andrew Spencer (centre) stands proudly with happy winners of the Treasure Beach Recycling
Competition at their awards presentation on Wednesday, May 16. The awards were presented at BREDS Sports Park. From left are: Opal Alexander, Principal of first place winner
Sandy bank Primary School; Wilton Smith, Principal of Pedro Plains Primary School which placed second; Dr Spencer; Idenisha Foster-Day, Head of Department, Pedro Plains
Infant School and Vennette Walker, Principal of Little Fish Basic School which placed third and fourth respectively.
As the Tourism Product Development Company Ltd
(TPDCo) continues to drive home the importance of re-
cycling plastic bottles to resort communities island-wide,
the Sandy Bank Primary School has taken top honours in
the Treasure Beach leg of a recycling competition.
Of a total of 264,700 plastic bottles collected by six
schools in the competition, Sandy Bank bagged 132,725
to receive the main prize from Executive Director of TP-
DCo, Dr Andrew Spencer at an awards ceremony held
recently at BREDS Sports Park in Treasure Beach.
Dr Spencer pointed out that “We have a number of des-
tination areas in Jamaica that allow tourism to happen
to them, and so the planners are grappling with the idea
of how to have remedial action to deal with some of the
issues so that we can then plan for the next 20 years.”
Showering praises on the Treasure Beach community as
a model for how it has embraced the competition and
taking the message from the roots by involving students
from the basic schools level to adult residents, Dr Spen-
cer said this was helping in environmental stewardship.
He underscored that every single bottle collected “has
taken us one step closer to creating a better community,
a better Jamaica and a better world.”
Directing his remarks at the children in particular, Dr Spen-
cer told them that everything they did to help with envi-
ronmental stewardship helped the world that they and
their children would be living in,
“so don’t take it lightly that the over 264,000 bottles that you
have collected is making an impact in our society.”
Underscoring that they were involved in something that was
more than a competition, Dr Spencer described recycling
as “a programme for the future that we must see as a way
of life; it has to be a cultural thing.”
The event was also supported by Recycling Partners of Ja-
maica, Destination Management Company, the Tourism
Enhancement Fund and Southern Parks and Markets. Tarah
Bryan of Recycling Partners said it had been operating since
2014 in partnership with a number of public and private sec-
tor entities and since then “we have collected over 4.8 mil-
lion pounds of plastic bottles through the implementation of
our Recycle Now Jamaica Project in schools, communities
and industries.”
Other awardees in the recycling competition included Pe-
dro Plains Primary School which placed second with a col-
lection of 85,325 bottles; Pedro Plains Infant School collect-
ed 36,100 to place third and Little Fish Basic School 10,550
bottles for fourth place. Certificates were also presented to
Swaby’s Plaza, Jack Sprat Restaurant, Kingfisher Plaza, Billy’s
Bay Gospel Church Great Bay and BREDS Sports Bar for their
participation as recycling hubs.