Clean St. Martin representatives with a Super U manager at the cheque presentation.
MARIGOT--The Super U supermarkets have donated the proceeds from their plastic bottle crushing machines to the association Clean St. Martin.
Each bottle deposited is worth one euro cent and at the end of the process customers are offered a voucher to use in the supermarket or the more popular option of making a donation to a worthy cause, in this case Clean St. Martin whose volunteers clean up the island on a regular basis.
A cheque for 1,600 euros was presented to Clean St. Martin representatives by the supermarket management from proceeds over the past year. More than 570,000 bottles were deposited and crushed at the Hope Estate supermarket and 330,000 bottles at the Howell Centre supermarket. The bottles are crushed into tiny fragments, loaded into sacks and transported to France where they are turned into various products before entering circulation again.
According to the management these are record figures and last October St. Martin was the biggest collector ahead of all the shops in mainland France. Next month, after a year of using the machines, one million bottles will have been collected and recycled.
Part of the funds will be used to buy gloves for the growing number of children who participate in Clean St. Martin's monthly clean-ups. The association also plans to produce stickers and eco-cups, particularly for sporting events. The partnership with Super U will continue and the next citizens’ eco-clean-up is already scheduled for April 16.
