El Siglo newspaper published a report citing that a Universidad Agroforestal Fernando Arturo de Meriño in coordination with a Dutch company have carried out a study showing the feasibility of recycling garbage in the DR. The idea is to recycle plastic garbage and convert this into asphalt. Every day more and more garbage is plastic, with the intense use of PET packaging by major local companies. Engineer Garry Kooy, in charge of the university project, said that the initiative came from the Dutch company, Gicom. The project would initially benefit La Vega province municipalities. The company has already in operation more than 225 composting plants in the world, processing more than two million tons per year. The plant would start processing 500 tons daily. It envisions having operations in Jarabacoa, La Vega city and Constanza in the La Vega province, that is about one hour drive from Santo Domingo. This would benefit a population of more than 150,000 inhabitants. The company would pick up the plastic bags in the barrios, introduce these into a compactor which compresses the garbage to packs of approximately 50 kilos. These packs are then taken to a nine cubic meter oven, heated to 300 degrees Celsius. The resulting liquid garbage is combined with petrochemicals and bitumen is obtained. This is the base for producing asphalt. Eng. Kooy said that light posts, cisterns for water and other products can also be produced from the material.
