In a re­lent­less pur­suit of ac­cept­able ways to im­prove rev­enue, the Turks and Caicos Is­lands (TCI) gov­ern­ment is about to im­ple­ment a new tax on re­cy­clable bev­er­age con­tain­ers com­ing in to the is­lands.

"At a date to be an­nounced the gov­ern­ment will im­pose a levy as a sur­charge on glass, plas­tic, alu­minum cans and bot­tles (re­cy­clable items) im­port­ed in­to the TCI," said the gov­ern­ment re­lease. "In ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 51 of the Pub­lic and En­vi­ron­men­tal Health Or­di­nance, the gov­ern­ment of the Turks and Caicos Is­lands is de­sirous of in­tro­duc­ing a re­cy­cling pro­gramme. The ob­jec­tive of this pro­gramme is to help re­duce the amount of lit­ter cur­rent­ly in our com­mu­ni­ties and strive to make the Is­lands of the Turks and Caicos tru­ly beau­ti­ful by na­ture," the re­lease con­tin­ued. Co­in­cid­ing with the an­nounce­ment of the new re­cy­cling tax was a pub­lic no­tice from the Min­istry of Health and Hu­man Ser­vices an­nounc­ing ten­der for op­er­a­tion of re­demp­tion cen­tres in the IGA and But­ter­field Square park­ing lots of Prov­i­den­ciales and on oth­er is­lands.

Re­tail­ers and con­sumers who take the re­cy­clable con­tain­ers to the var­i­ous re­demp­tion cen­tres will be paid five cents for each bev­er­age con­tain­er up to 16 oz and 10 cents for each con­tain­er in ex­cess of the 16 oz ca­pac­i­ty. The gov­ern­ment en­vi­sions that when it in­tro­duces the new im­port tax on re­cy­clable items, re­tail­ers will pass this du­ty on to con­sumers. "There­fore, the gov­ern­ment will al­low for the es­tab­lish­ment and op­er­a­tion of re­demp­tion cen­tres where­by re­tail­ers and con­sumers on re­turn­ing the re­cy­clable items will be re­fund­ed a per­cent­age of the levy," the gov­ern­ment said. The ten­der calls for the pro­cure­ment, in­stal­la­tion, and op­er­a­tion of re­demp­tion cen­tres at the two lo­ca­tions al­ready se­cured by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Health De­part­ment.

The re­demp­tion cen­tre equip­ment will be pur­chased from Nex­col­lect, in the USA, along with nec­es­sary com­po­nents such as a bat­tery op­er­at­ed com­pactor, portable elec­tron­ic scale, hand-held com­put­ing unit with wire­less ca­pa­bil­i­ties for gen­er­at­ing re­demp­tion vouch­ers, five waste re­cep­ta­cles and the re­demp­tion cen­tre con­tain­er. The cost of each cen­tre will not ex­ceed US$25,000 ex­clu­sive of freight.

The re­demp­tion cen­tres are of an ex­clu­sive de­sign (patent­ed) and con­tain three com­part­ments to hold met­al, glass and plas­tic. The bat­tery pow­ered com­pactor is of an ex­clu­sive de­sign. The com­pactor achieves a 12-1 com­paction of alu­minum, plas­tic and glass bev­er­age con­tain­ers. Glass is com­pact­ed and placed in the in­te­ri­or box­es that are of a per­ma­nent de­sign and are emp­tied by sim­ply open­ing the ex­te­ri­or door. Alu­minum com­pact­ed blocks are stacked in the rear of the box as is the com­pact­ed plas­tic. The plas­tic block is placed in a plas­tic bag to en­sure the in­tegri­ty of the block and not to con­t­a­m­i­nate the alu­minuim.

Bid­ders are asked to sub­mit fixed price bids to op­er­ate the re­cy­cling cen­tres, ei­ther in­di­vid­u­al­ly or in full, in the fol­low­ing lo­ca­tions: IGA, Prov­i­den­ciales; But­ter­field Square, Prov­i­den­ciales; North Caicos (cov­er­ing Mid­dle Caicos, Par­rot & Pine Cay); and Grand Turk (cov­er­ing Salt Cay and South Caicos). Pro­pos­als will be as­sessed ac­cord­ing to their over­all val­ue for mon­ey to the gov­ern­ment and the econ­o­my of the Turks and Caicos Is­lands. Cri­te­ria will in­clude the bid­der's ex­pe­ri­ences, ca­pa­bil­i­ties, fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty, and over­all re­spon­sive­ness to this RFP. Ad­di­tion­al ini­tia­tives to re­duce waste and en­hance the en­vi­ron­ment of the Turks and Caicos are al­so wel­comed and will be con­sid­ered as part of the as­sess­ment process. Caribbean­news.com