Page 12 - IB FEB 2020

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has moved to Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam amongst other is being sent to landfill. Domestic recycling plants have
destinations, and some scrap traders are sending plastic pellet closed, despite government subsidies and grants, as a knock-
to China (rather than totally unprocessed waste), the market on effect of the China bans. With opportunities contracting in
continues to contract . even these mature economies, the pressure is on Pacific island
As a result of stricter regulation and outright bans in nations to find homegrown and locally managed solution to
formerly waste processing markets, countries such as waste generation and disposal issues.
Australia—where a generation has grown up expecting they
can sort their rubbish into colour-coded bins, and it would be * http://plasticadrift.org
recycled—are experiencing a waste crisis. Recyclable material editor@islandsbusiness.com

Mission Pacific’s Mathew Lomaloma

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

By Samantha Magick market annually.
On the day we visited the Suva centre, clean, crushed,
Every week Mission Pacific’s bottle buy-back centre in Suva baled bottles were being offloaded from a truck that had
is visited by a wide variety of Fiji residents and businesses come from the Denarau tourist hub. Plastic rattled across the
with very different motivations for bringing in their PET sorting table as Mission Pacific workers opened the bales and
bottles. quickly sorted through the bottles, looking for contaminants
Some of them are driven by love for the environment, says such as oil, paint and rubbish, before sweeping them into bags
Mission Pacific Environment and Sustainability Officer, Mathew to take to the baling room.
Lomaloma. Others are driven by a sense of industriousness. Mission Pacific also offers a pickup service when this can
Some bottles come from villages where bottle collection has align with its deliveries of new product—as it doesn’t have a
been tied to village health or environment initiatives. Other dedicated fleet. Schools, hotels, business, villages and city
individuals and businesses are driven by profit. Occasionally councils are on the pick-up route.
someone will try to play the system as well, “you’ll find some Lomaloma says they’re working hard to get villages
people will try and throw a brick in there.” involved. “There is one [effort] in the Kings Road area
“You also have the retirees who try and put a little bit [northern Viti Levu] that is operating right now in the district
of money in their pockets,” says Lomaloma. “There’s a of Nayavu. There’s about 29 villages there and they’ve tied
gentleman who says he wants to fund his own funeral. It’s it back to their medical program, so they’ll say, ‘insects are
a bit morbid but they have their reasons, it’s different breeding in empty vessels, bring your bottles and cans back’.
motivating factors for different people.” Lomaloma says he can see mindsets changing.
Mission Pacific has been operating since 1999, although only “I’ve seen people are willing to do it, we just need to
under the current name for a couple of years. Established by facilitate it. It’s very slow if there is no outlet. You can’t
Coca-Cola Amatil (its other partners are Fiji Water and Sprint) set people up to change their behaviour if there is no
the program now recycles more than 200 tonnes of PET bottles infrastructure there to have the change it supported. The
per annum; or about 20 per cent of bottles sent into the rural people still have that mindset that you bury in that

12 Islands Business, February 2020