The com­mu­ni­ty of San­ta Rosa Heights, Ari­ma, is do­ing its part to tack­le plas­tic pol­lu­tion in T&T.

In the week lead­ing up to Christ­mas, res­i­dents of at least ten house­holds com­piled their old plas­tics to be col­lect­ed and up­cy­cled by non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion (NGO) Fly­ing Tree En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment (FTEM).

Some of the items cre­at­ed out of plas­tics in­clude lum­ber, bench­es, gates, fences, doors and plant pots.

Michelle Ra­goo­bar, founder of a small­er con­ser­va­tion group, To Ga­ia With Love, and a res­i­dent of San­ta Rosa, in­tro­duced both par­ties to this ini­tia­tive.

“For some years, af­ter learn­ing that ICARE on­ly takes bev­er­age items, I have been vol­un­teer­ing with Fly­ing Tree En­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment, en­cour­ag­ing friends and fam­i­ly to re­cy­cle their plas­tics,” Ra­goo­bar said.

She said that in 2022, Fly­ing Tree held an event in San­ta Rosa, and sev­er­al res­i­dents came out to sup­port the up­cy­cling ini­tia­tive.

Ra­goo­bar said the event was al­so sup­port­ed by Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) for Ari­ma, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, who she said al­lowed the event to be held in the carpark of her sub-of­fice in San­ta Rosa.

“At that event, I cre­at­ed a What­sApp group and these neigh­bours and I have been re­cy­cling with Fly­ing Tree ever since,” she shared.

Two years lat­er on De­cem­ber 14, 2024, the NGOs and the res­i­dents ex­pand­ed the ini­tia­tive and had a two-hour long col­lec­tion dri­ve, where Ra­goo­bar said they col­lect­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100kgs of plas­tics.

“So imag­ine what can be done for our pol­lu­tion lev­els if we cov­er our en­tire neigh­bour­hood,” she said.

Pres­i­dent of the San­ta Rosa Com­mit­tee Coun­cil Li­onel Beck­les praised Ra­goo­bar for step­ping up the process of col­lect­ing plas­tics from the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Hats off to Michelle and Fly­ing Tree, who has been a live wire with this NGO for a while,” he stat­ed. Ra­goo­bar said the plan is to have the plas­tic in the com­mu­ni­ty col­lect­ed at least one Sat­ur­day every month.

“Our land­fills are so over­bur­dened with pol­lu­tion and, so on,” she said.

The di­rec­tor of Fly­ing Tree God­frey Boodoo ex­plained that it’s im­por­tant to col­lect the plas­tics at the house­hold lev­el to lim­it con­t­a­m­i­na­tion (re­duce car­bon).

From the ten house­holds they vis­it­ed, they col­lect­ed buck­ets, chairs, a car bumper, and a tele­vi­sion.

“We have al­most 100kgs of plas­tic that could have end­ed up in the dump and, of course, the riv­er,” he said.

The ma­te­r­i­al col­lect­ed will then be car­ried to Fly­ing Tree where it will be analysed. Ra­goo­bar al­so said a glass col­lec­tion dri­ve in her com­mu­ni­ty is the next ini­tia­tive planned.

FTEM can be con­tact­ed at 704-6162 or To Ga­ia With Love at 301-5359. It can al­so be found on Face­book.