Automated balers to increase RPJ’s plastic exports
Published:Friday | January 26, 2024 | 12:12 AMAvia Collinder - Business Writer
Gairy Taylor, general manager of Recycling Partners of Jamaica (RPJ), says the company’s capacity for exports has improved with the acquisition of two automatic balers.
The balers, he said, cost approximately US$100,000 each and will boost their plastic-processing capabilities.
“Each baler system costs approximately US$100K and will provide us with increased capacity (1200- 1500lb/hr), compared to our manually run balers at Lakes Pen that yielded 150-200lb/hr,” Taylor said.
He outlined that the new baler gives “us the capacity to process 12,000 to 16,000 pounds of plastic bottles/baler/day in a single shift, compared to 1,000 to 1,200 pounds/baler/day. Also, we have combined our sorting and baling process by introducing the sorting line, removing the need to sort before we bale, and reducing the machine downtime.”
Taylor now expects to meet higher targets for collecting, processing and exporting plastic bottles sold into the market this year, projecting a two per cent increase month-on- month to March 2025.
In 2023 the company reported collecting 30 per cent of all bottles used nationally.
It recently moved its operating centre from Lakes Pen to facilities leased from the Factories Corporation of Jamaica at Naggo Head in Portmore, St Catherine.
RPJ outgrew the space at Lakes Pen due to the increased number of plastic bottles collected and the need to accommodate the required processing equipment.
“This space was no longer supporting the planned growth objectives and goals of RPJ,” Taylor told the Financial Gleaner.
The recently purchased balers will add to eight other automated machines. Both automated and manual machines are used in the company’s recycling efforts.
Taylor said that the new sorting line reduced the costly and labour-intensive task of sorting the bottles.
“The output will increase, and the production cost (staffing cost) will be reduced,” he noted.
When bales are packaged, they are then shipped abroad to companies which grind them down to make new materials. These include chairs, building blocks, plastic floor tiles and polyester.
Taylor told the Financial Gleaner that the company spent $100 million equipping its new operations centre at Naggo Head, including baler.
Funding for the move came from the charity’s internal coffers, and RPJ gets one dollar for every bottle produced by its partners, which are Grace Foods and Services Limited, Seprod Limited, Wysinco Group Limited, Pepsi-Cola, GraceKennedy, SM Jaleel, Coldfield Manufacturers, which makes Pure Country and Big Joe juices, and Lasco Manufacturing Limited. Altogether, the companies produce about 800 million plastic bottles annually.
The dollar per bottle allows RPJ to implement its islandwide recycling programme, which the company indicates has reached 30 per cent of all bottles generated.
“Most communities now have a recycling receptacle. But there are people earning millions from plastic bottles per year, it’s $50 per kilogramme,” Taylor stated.
The total paid to vendors for the past 12 months (January to December 2023) was J$181,023,536.36 for 3,719,344.85kg of plastics.
RPJ is charged with picking up the bottles and shipping them to one of seven depots islandwide, where they are separated by type and colour.
The company also implements the deposit-return scheme to encourage people to return on a larger scale.
Taylor said that in relation to capex for the current year, “the FY24-25 budget is still being worked on. We will share this information after the approval of the board of directors.”