The Samoa Recycling and Waste Management Association has started a programme to recycle one million plastic bottles which will also provide more opportunities for young women and people with a disability. 

The President of the S.R.W.M.A., Marina Keil, said their chief goal is exporting and processing one million bottles, a task for which they have called for volunteer assistance. 

On Thursday they had invited the inclusive non-government organisation Senese to be among their first group of volunteers to work at the organisation’s Tafaigata headquarters. 

Senese supports the inclusion of children with disabilities in learning and other activities across primary, and secondary education. 

The new volunteers were part of a workshop introducing them to the association’s functions and the fundamental aspects of how it carries out its recycling procedures.

With that funding, Mrs. Keil said they are able to employ four girls from Senese, to provide women with an opportunity for green jobs in a male-dominated industry. 

The association is seeking to meet its one-million bottle target by the end of the month with Mrs. Keil saying that while she remained hopeful, the deadline could be too ambitious for a project which has only recently started. 

She said that they had also contacted Aoga Fiamalamala - a non government school catering to students with intellectual disabilities - and added that providing children with work experience could lead to future employment opportunities. 

The group was shown some of the recycling processes including the use of a compacting machine. 

A total of 1000 plastic bottles are placed into the compactor at the Tafaigata premises which turns them into a compressed package. 

Mrs. Keil said that 1000 bottles can become compacted into a single material equal to 27 kilograms.

The compacted material is then shipped to Australia to recycle into preform for plastic bottles.

Mrs. Keil said Australia's strict import regulations require a thorough cleaning of the bottles before shipment. 

She is inviting members of the public interested in helping the initiative as a volunteer to contact the S.R.W.M.A.

The association plans to extend its initiative beyond June and continue its collection of plastic bottles.

The project is being conducted with partners such as the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (M.N.R.E), the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (S.P.R.E.P), and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (J.I.C.A)