Urges Community to use Sint Maarten Recycle Facilities on W.J.A Nisbeth Road
PHILIPSBURG:--- The St. Maarten Nature Foundation is calling on the community to make use of the St. Maarten Recycling Bins on the W J. A Nisbeth Road (Pondfill Road) opposite Blue Point. For the past weeks the Nature Foundation has been collecting plastic bottles from marinas, private yachts and boat owners in the Simpson Bay Lagoon as well as from the Cole Bay community and has been bringing it to the Recycling Bins for subsequent recycling by Sint. Maarten Recycle.
Water bottles are made of completely recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics. However PETs don't biodegrade they photodegrade, which means that they break down into smaller fragments over time. Those fragments absorb toxins that pollute St. Maarten Ponds and Lagoons, contaminate the soil and sicken animals. Plastic trash also absorbs organic pollutants like BPA and PCBs and can take centuries to decompose while sitting in the Great Bay Landfill, which, according to a recent Huffington Post article, amounts to endless billions of little environmentally poisonous time bombs.
According to the Ocean Conservatory, plastic bottles are the most prevalent form of pollution found on our beaches and in our oceans -- every square mile of the ocean has over 46,000 pieces of floating plastic in it and ten percent of the plastic manufactured worldwide ends up in the ocean, the majority of that settling on the ocean floor where it will never degrade.
The Nature Foundation urges the community to make use of the recycling facilities. For more information contact the Nature Foundation at 5444267 or Sint Maarten Recycle at 5430155. Sint. Maarten Recycle also recycles aluminum, glass and cardboard materials.
