Kirk Office Equipment has joined forces with a local recycling company to export used office waste off Island.
The office equipment company already recycles used HP toners and ink cartridges, but it announced this week that it is expanding its efforts to discarded computers, printers, photocopiers and fax machines, as well as old shipping pallets.
Kirk Office Equipment has contracted JH Moore, the company behind the ubiquitous green “We buy scrap metal” signs all over Grand Cayman, to collect the used office machines, from its North Sound Road office. The equipment, along with others that the company collects, are then compressed into balers or boxes and shipped in 40-foot containers to Florida.
Once the containers arrive in Florida, the material is transferred to recycling consolidators, which sort it into batches of similar items, so that batteries could end up at the Exide plant in Pennsylvania, aluminium cans could eventually get to a bauxite processing plant in Jamaica and electronic waste to various electronics components manufacturers.
JH Moore Recycling Services, which has been operating in Grand Cayman for more than four years, trades in all types of scrap metal, including aluminium, such as used beverage cans, motor cast, painted siding, radiators, wheels; brass, including valves, pumps and fixtures; copper items like wires, pipe fittings, motor windings, gutter; and stainless steel solids, clips and turnings. Its recycling services also extend to electronic scrap, including whole personal computers, laptops, hard drives, circuit boards, cell phones, inkjet and laser cartridges.
Members of the public may drop off these items at containers in several locations including Dump Road, along Linford Pierson Highway, the mini-warehouse across from Caribbean Utilities Company and in Bodden Town and East End. They may also contact the company on 769-9995 to arrange for pick up of commercial quantities.
Tim Frey, operations manager at JH Moore Recycling Services, said Grand Cayman’s recycling programmes have come a long way, so much so that there are no more batteries going to the landfill.
“We are really proud of the efforts the Island is making. We have shipped over a million pounds of recyclable waste off Island within a year. We try to pick up five to six thousand pounds per day. We love what we do,” he said.
Mr. Frey has been working with Kirk Office Equipment for more than a year and a half.
Rick Morris, service manager at Kirk Office Equipment, said Kirk makes it easy for people to join the existing recycling effort as customers are encouraged to drop off their used HP toners and ink cartridges or the company will collect from their offices. These are then shipped to the United States where they can be processed to re-enter the supply chain.
“Kirk is all about going green and we are happy to work with JH Moore Recycling Services to continue and expand what we already started. It’s a growing operation and we hope to do more with them to keep Cayman clean and to reduce the number of items that end up in our landfill,” Mr. Morris said.
Related Videos
