By The Star
When Saint Lucian eco-entrepreneur Wayne Neale popped up on the Royal Family’s Instagram page earlier this month it was a surreal but proud moment. “There was a lot of excitement, I was getting messages from all over the world.”
Neale was pictured receiving the prestigious Commonwealth Secretary-General’s Innovation for Sustainable Development Award – handed to him by Prince Harry at a London garden party on June 14. Neale was the only Saint Lucian, and one of only two innovators in the Caribbean, honoured at the event.
Neale is the founder and Managing Director of Greening the Caribbean (GtC), Saint Lucia’s only waste management and recycling firm. GtC offers its clients consultancy, collection and recycling services – sorting through their waste to determine what should go to landfill and what can be recycled. Reusable material, such as e-waste, cans, bottles and newspapers, is processed at GtC’s Materials Recovery Centre and then exported off the island.
For Neale, this recent recognition by the Commonwealth is not just a validation of his business model, which has been met with scepticism from some quarters, but also a way of showing his five employees and his clients that their efforts are seen and celebrated. “The level of appreciation I have for my team and my clients, I cannot put into words,” he says, adding that Rubis St Lucia and JE Bergasse in particular have been very supportive of GtC’s efforts. “The clients are the environmental champions, they are the ones that make it happen. It is their material we are recycling.”
