The Pilot Recycling Plastic Waste in the OECS (RePlast OECS) project is a two-year plastic recycling project which is being implemented by Unite Caribbean Ltd. in Saint Lucia.
Its aim is to set up an OECS-wide plastic waste collection and recycling system with a pilot phase between Saint Lucia and Caribbean recycling plants in a circular economy model.

This project responds to a real need as plastic waste, especially plastic bottles have been a major source of environmental degradation for decades. In fact, in many insular Caribbean territories, plastic waste is neither being sorted, recycled or collected. The Government, public operators, the civil society and the private sector in Saint Lucia have engaged in extensive consultation since 2017 to organize a collective response to the challenges of collecting, processing and exporting recyclable waste in the Caribbean.

Several collection experiments of very limited scope were carried out at the beginning of 2018. The first analyses drew a satisfactory assessment but without the technical and financial capacity, a real replicable model was not created and thus, the action was not repeated on a national scale. In the Caribbean, some territories have specific industry specialising in the recycling of plastic bottles. A cooperation project using Unite Caribbean approach and technical capacity would allow these neighbouring territories to find collective solutions. It is in this context that this pilot project was elaborated.

The project aims to achieve the following outcomes

1. An end-to-end flow facilitating the collection and management of plastic waste (involving public, private and local stakeholders) is set up and operational in Saint Lucia
2. Used plastic bottles from Saint Lucia are exported to the wider Caribbean for recycling
3. Saint Lucia’s population is aware of the ecological issues surrounding managing and sorting recyclable waste
4. Other territories in the Eastern Caribbean (OECS) are ready to replicate the pilot action undertaken