Environment

Boracay Recycling Center

Helps Rid Garbage

By Venus G. Villanueva

In Boracay Island, a recycling center focusing on converting used styrofoam into other useful items is helping the island get rid of non-biodegradable garbage.
This recycling center melts used styrofoam and converts it into other items for other purposes in the island.
To convert used styrofoam into other items, the center uses a bio-reactor equipment the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) furnished, according to Provincial Officer Jairus Lachica.
The process said Lachica, is simple. Used containers made of styrofoam from fastfood centers, appliance stores and other business sources are melted in used oil. Then through a molder, the melted matter is turned into many items which could be used for many purposes.
Lachica revealed that one of the items fashioned out of the used styrofoam is tile, which a Boracay resort is using as materials for its pathwalks.
The recycling center, Lachica revealed, is being run by the local government of Malay, funded by the Department of Tourism in coordination with the Boracay Foundation Incorporated. The DOST provided the technology.
Besides recycling used styrofoam, Lachica disclosed that the DOST also aids the island by converting other waste matters into organic fertilizer as its waste-management support to the local government of Malay, Aklan and the country’s tourism thrust. /MP