CoRe is an acronym for Community Recycling developed by an environmentally focused Barbadian NGO, the Future Centre Trust. The CoRe NETWORK then is a collective group of communities who have chosen to implement community recycling with the help of the Future Centre Trust and their partner to the concept in this phase – The Coca Cola Foundation. The CoRe NETWORK was born from a recognised need, firstly by schools, then by other community groups including neighbourhoods and church groups, to include recycling in the way they live.

What is Community Recycling?

People generally don’t recycle in Barbados because it takes some effort (See our tab on Recycling in Barbados). We believe we have designed a way to reduce the effort so that people can be involved in a healthier way to manage waste in their country. The idea is very simple – if you make recycling easy for people, they will give it a try.

CoRe recognises that busy people have busy lives which include routines. We have developed three mechanisms for CoRe in Barbados:

1) The CoRe Centre

2) The CoRe Community

3) And Collect and Go

CoRe Centre revolves around an actual structure – a shed or a room which can be kept locked that can store recyclables for up to two weeks. Therevolves around an actual structure – a shed or a room which can be kept locked that can store recyclables for up to two weeks. Click here to download the Plan for the ‘Future Shed’ as seen at the Girl Guides Association’s CoRe Centre. This was designed by Bradley Thompson. A CoRe Community is usually a neighbourhood group who choose a day and a location to put their recyclable materials out, and B’s Recycling comes on that day to ‘count and pay’. In both cases, a receipt is given along with cash from the recycling company. The data from here is collected by the Future Centre Trust. The Collect and Go system is for some neighbourhoods or groups where payment is not necessary. It works something like this: The neighbours decide with B’s Recycling which morning they would put out their recycling (usually the day after the SSA collect garbage on their street).

The neighbours would put their bag or box of recycling in front of their house on that day ONLY and B’s would come around and collect their materials on the same day.

Materials are taken by B’s Recycling to their facility for processing. Having a liaison person/s in the community to contact B’s Recycling periodically if there were issues arising would be important in this style.

Why do Community Recycling?

Community recycling is easier for people for many reasons, the main one being community members don’t have to store huge bags of plastic bottles in their own homes for weeks. The recyclable materials (plastic, glass and metal) are collected by the waste broker regularly either from home of from a central location (located in their neighbourhood, church, school or workplace – where they go anyway!) and it’s done!

For more information on the CoRe NETWORK programme or to obtain your copy of the FCT developed “Community Recycling Made Easy Handbook” for USD20, please contact the Future Centre Trust.





