Renew Bahamas opens first commercial-scale MRF

Capable of processing more than 80 tons per hour, the MRF in Nassau, Bahamas, will export recovered recyclables.

Renew Bahamas, Nassau, Bahamas, in late May opened its new materials recycling facility (MRF), which was commissioned by Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie.

The 125,000-square-foot MRF, built at a cost of $7 million, can process up to 80 metric tons per hour of residential and commercial recyclables, the company says. Recycling equipment supplier Machinex Group, based in Plessisville, Quebec, partnered with Renew Bahamas to design and install the new facility, which took four months to complete.

Renew Bahamas President and CEO Gerhard Beukes says construction of the MRF, the first of its kind in the country, represents a major step forward.

“What we are doing has not been done at this scale anywhere in the country or in the region,” Beukes says. “We can now say the Bahamas is an exporter of recyclate materials, which are being sold to customers on the global scene. It is also the start of our efforts to substantially reduce the negative environmental footprint of these troubled lands.”

By recycling and recovering value from materials, especially combustible materials, such as cardboard and plastic, that were previously sent to landfill, the potential for future fires at the adjacent landfill site will be reduced, the company reports.

Renew Bahamas also received international endorsement from Peter Wang, president and CEO of America Chung Nam (ACN), an international supplier of recovered fiber and plastics.

“We feel fortunate to work closely with Renew Bahamas as the first company in the Caribbean to organize the waste industry, unlocking significant amounts of available resources and converting them into products at an international standard,” Wang says. “That requires a vision, a clear focus, and a lot of hard work and technical know-how. We have been very impressed with the result, and with the quality of the recovered paper that was shipped to us.”

Jonathan Menard, project director at Machinex Group, observes, “Renew Bahamas has been a great partner in this venture and we were sincerely impressed from day one by the vision, the skills and the unity of the Renew Bahamas group.

“Installing the first state-of-the-art MRF in the Caribbean Islands came with a number of challenges but, as a team, Machinex and Renew Bahamas demonstrated that the proposed model could work and that it could be reproduced elsewhere within the Caribbean Islands. This project is another strong example of Machinex’s capability to export and develop the international waste management market outside of the success the company has in North America and the United Kingdom,” Menard adds.

Machinex says the plant features innovative sorting and baling technologies and will be manned on a continuous basis with a staff of about 50 people at any one time.

Renew Bahamas is a solid waste management company responsible for operating and managing the city’s landfill site, in partnership with the government of the Bahamas. The company says it employs 85 people and expects to hire an additional 50 people in the coming months. By operating the new MRF, Renew plans to become a leading exporter of recycled products in the region.

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