Jolly Ann Cruz, right, talks about recycling plastics during the Rotary Club of Saipan meeting at the Crowne Plaza on Tuesday, Sept. 12.
AT the weekly meeting of the Rotary Club of Saipan on Tuesday, Sept. 12, Jolly Ann Cruz, program manager at the Mariana Islands Nature Alliance, detailed the challenges facing MINA’s community plastic recycling program.
Cruz said the American Rescue Plan Act funding the program was supposed to receive was not fully awarded to MINA.
She said they received only about 25% of what they were originally awarded. Because of this, the plastic recycling program is only available at some schools on Saipan as well as one parish.
For now, the pilot phase involves collecting, cleaning, and sorting used plastics from Dandan Middle School, Saipan International School, Northern Marianas Technical Institute, Northern Marianas College, Mount Carmel School, Saipan Community School, Oleai Elementary School, and the San Vicente Parish. The plastics are then recycled into other items, all on Saipan.
According to Cruz, MINA can collect about 3.3 million individual pieces of food waste plastic from schools in a year.
Cruz said by now, the program would have been collecting plastics from the community. She said funds would have potentially paid for trailers to collect and move plastics to their 3-in-1 Upcycling Machines and from there, be turned into various goods, such as rulers, bag clips, plates, and bowls.
“That’s why it’s still in its pilot phase. At this point we were hoping that it would be rolling out, that we’d have it in the community and have maybe a bi-weekly collection,” Cruz said.
There were even plans to bring a 3-in-1 Upcycling Machine to Tinian, but Cruz said volunteers there would need machine training, and MINA would need a boat to move the machine, all of which require money.
“In terms of how we originally intended for this project to flow, [we envisioned] more community involvement, more hubs, more collections…but all of that is part of the [funding] we couldn’t receive,” Cruz told the media after the Rotary Club meeting.
She said as a non-profit organization, MINA can receive private donations.
She also mentioned that the Green Gala set for Oct. 6 is MINA’s major fundraising activity and is essential for their programmatic activities.
She said tickets can be purchased at the MINA office on Middle Road in Gualo Rai. For more information, call (670) 233-7333 or email minaoutreach@gmail.com/.
