The all-woman recycling team at the Department of Environmental Health is on a mission to ensure a cleaner, greener Cayman and is urging the community to join their cause.
“We all can do it together,” the women told the Cayman Compass during a recent visit to the recycling centre at the George Town landfill.
More than co-workers
The DEH recycling-processing team comprises Angela Mac, Karen Ebanks, Sascha Miller, Alice Mabel McField and Debra Ramoon.
The women, all of varying ages and backgrounds, have been working together for close to a decade, sharing triumphs and tribulations as part of what has become a sisterhood.
“We all live together as one happy family. If anybody have one plate of food and [somebody] can’t afford the other one, we all try to chip in and make sure that one gets food or, if not, we share the plate that we have,” Miller said.
Mac, the first female DEH worker at the centre, considers herself a matriarch of the group, who has paved the way for the others.
“I make them see it’s not the scent, it’s the money that you are coming in here to make. If I can do it, you can do it too. I am glad for all of them who followed in my footsteps,” she said, tearfully.
Mac first started at DEH as a receptionist, but she wanted more. Though it was not easy for her as the lone woman, she persevered and advanced.
Mac now runs her own team at the oil recycling centre, and says she’s proud to have 27 years of service under her belt.
“Women can do anything they want, they got the ability to do anything they want. I climb the tanks. I have to do that ’cause I have to see how [full] my shipping tank is [with] my eyes. That’s why I love my job,” she said.
Caring for Cayman
That passion for the work is shared by the five women.
“I love my job,” said team member Ebanks. “I love to see my island kept clean and that’s one of the reasons [I am here]. As a woman, I think it’s something good to experience… to get this kind of job, especially when you love your island and you take pride in your island.”
The 63-year-old great-grandmother of one, who was part of the former National Community Enhancement Project, joined the DEH seven years ago as a recycling processor.
Though it can be a dirty job, she said she would not trade the experience nor the sisterly bond she has formed with her teammates.
“There’s no turning back. I don’t intend to turn back until it’s time to retire,” she said.
She said she has been blessed to get opportunities that empower her as a woman, like driving the forklift, something in her early days with the department would have been unheard of.
She said she even completed a garbage route hanging off the back of a truck, a first for a woman at the DEH.
“I swung on the garbage truck from the East End route, the first woman to do a full route. I wasn’t scared. It’s just like you’re just standing up holding onto a piece of pipe, getting cool air blowing in your face. Sometimes the smell is a little bit, but you get over that as time go by,” she said.
Miller agreed, adding that she is also happy for the opportunities she gets at the centre.
She can drive the flatbed vehicles, but her said her dream is to drive the trucks. She is working toward getting her licence to operate those.
She said her greatest joy is being both a team player and a team leader.
“Everyone has to help each other carry the weight. One can’t do it alone. When I go out there and I see one of my co-workers struggling, I don’t care if I’m driving, I’m getting out,” she said.
Plea for proper disposal
While they agree sorting through recyclables is not a glamorous job, they point out that the public can make it less stressful and a lot safer for them.
“I would like to ask the public if they could be more careful when they’re throwing their recyclable things, to make sure it’s just recyclable things and not garbage. Sometimes we get like 75% garbage, 25% recyclable items, so that’s not really good. It puts my health at risk,” Ebanks said.
DEH recycling processor Ramoon says it’s hard to start their day, which begins before daybreak, dealing with foul recyclables.
“Recycling is good, but one thing that people need to understand is it is just for plastic, cans and cardboard,” she said, adding that people have been throwing household garbage in the recycling containers around the island.
“Please stop throwing what is not supposed to be thrown into the recycling bins,” she said.
McField, a DEH recycling processor, says she would like other women to consider similar jobs.
“Come and try it, to see how it is and then you would like it. Over here you get to do a lot of training as well,” she said.
McField added it was rewarding to protect the future of the Cayman Islands by supporting local recycling efforts.
This story is part of a Compass series in the run-up to International Women’s Day on 8 March. If you have a story idea for this series, please email [email protected].
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