The team of Dwight St Hilaire, Che Lara, Machel Cedenio and Richards clocked 3:01.29. It was Richards' second gold medal of the Games. He won the 200m title in a Games record 19.80s on Saturday.
Botswana won the silver running 3:01.85. The bronze medal went to Kenya who ran 3:02.41. Jamaica crossed the finish line in fourth place but was disqualified.
Jamaica’s women enjoyed better fortunes as the team of Shian Salmon, Junelle Bromfield, Roneisha McGregor and Natoya Goule ran bravely for the bronze medal in 3:26.93.
The gold medal was a battle between England and Canada with both teams battling to the line with the home team winning their first 4x400m Commonwealth title in 28 years.
Their winning time was 3:25.83 with Canada 0.01 seconds behind in 3:25.84.
Meanwhile, in the field, Grenada’s Anderson Peters was upset in the javelin.
Peters struggled early but produced his best throw of 88.64m, which temporarily gave him the lead. It would not last, however, as Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem uncorked a career-best 91.18m, a new Games record to snatch victory.
Kenya’s Julius Yego, the 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2015 World Champion produced a season-best 85.70m for the bronze medal.
She was speaking at the recent launch of the plastic bottle recycling competition by Recycling Partners of Jamaica between Boston Jerk Centre in Portland and Melrose Hill Yam Park in Manchester. Both establishments will be vying to double their earnings as well as bragging rights for which location can accomplish their collection targets by December 31.
Since the competition began in July, vendors at Melrose Hill Yam Park have collected more than 300kg while those at Boston Jerk Centre have done even better, collecting more than 500kg. The RPJ Brand Ambassadors Agent Sasco, the team leader for Boston Jerk Centre and Natoya Goule, the team leader for Melrose Hill Yam Park, are at the forefront of the initiative.
“I believe this competition is important because it not only allows the citizens of Jamaica to see how important recycling is but also motivates me to let them know that recycling plastic can help to make the environment in a better place,” Goule said following the launch.
She urged Jamaicans to do a better job in keeping the environment clean of non-biodegradables.
“My message to Jamaicans, who continue to litter, is that if we do not take care of Jamaica, who will? If we continue to litter the environment it will not only cause pollution but it will destroy the environment,” she said.
“If someone was supposed to bring litter and throw it inside our homes we wouldn’t like it, so that’s how it is with littering the environment it is not good to throw plastic or garbage on the street and other places.”
For the competition, the two establishments aim to collect plastic waste from their vendors and customers for recycling. Both locations are also public drop-off points for the surrounding communities to take their bagged plastic bottles.
Each location has been set a target, determined by their respective consumption volumes. Boston Jerk Centre was given a target of 2000 kg while Melrose Hill Yam Park has been tasked to collect 1500 kg.
The winner will be determined by the location which reaches its target by December 31. If both locations achieve their targets, the location which exceeds its target by the greater percentage will be the winner.
However, there has been a major challenge because while the vendors at both locations are largely on board with the initiative, community support has been lacking. Committed vendors have had to import plastics from other communities to increase their numbers. This takes away from the objective of the competition, which originally aimed to motivate community recycling.
The locations will be paid $48 for each kilogram collected. Funds will be paid at the end of the competition period, and the winning location will be awarded double their earnings. The funds earned from this competition will be used to improve the infrastructure of the locations.
