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March 20, 2008
bron The Daily Herald
Commissioner Bruce Zagers signed Tuesday afternoon an agreement with Bakker
Recycling of St. Maarten, which will rid the island of over 1,500 metric tons of
metal. This coming weekend a barge will bring the necessary heavy equipment to Saba,
consisting of two excavators and a crusher. One of the excavators will remain in the
Fort Bay area and the other and the crusher will be located near the landfill.
Three expert technicians with the company will come to Saba to operate the equipment
and oversee the operation, which should take about a month. The metal objects go
into the crusher and then the compressed results size. The fi nal results returned
to Bakker will be the volume equivalent of about 68, 20-foot containers, and should
make up one load on the barge returning to St. Maarten. Bakker Recycling Managing
Director Jean James said that it had taken time since his fi rst visit last June for
both parties to be prepared to sign an agreement. The cost of the operation to Saba
Government is approximately NAf. 68,400, which includes room and board for the
Bakker crew, shipping of materials to and from Saba, fuel to run the equipment, and
trucking on Saba by Big Rock Engineering. All proceeds from the sale of the metal
will go to Bakker. Zagers said that he had met with stakeholders from the Planning
Bureau, Public Works, and Big Rock Engineering.
In addition, the government will
reach out to the population to help gather any metal items that might still be on
private property. Zagers said that government would organize the pickup and let the
villages know in advance. Zagers said that once the landfill is cleared of metal
objects, metal would be separated out and collected in one spot in the landfi ll. He
said that the new waste management programme, earmarked for NAf. 400,000, is one of
the Social Economic Initiatives (SEI). The plan is that there will be no more landfill burning, but refuse will be buried.
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