Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 2/16/2023
LONGMEADOW – Students at Center School in Longmeadow have collected over 3,800 pounds of plastic as part of the nationwide Trex Plastic Film Recycling Challenge. However, the real challenge these children are interested in is cleaning up the planet.
In the Trex Plastic Film Recycling Challenge, schools are challenged to collect the most polyethylene plastic film by weight over a five-month period between America Recycles Day on Nov. 15 and the following Earth Day, which falls on April 22 this year. Last year, in the 2021 contest, the nationwide winning school collected more than 7,000 pounds of plastic.
The first and second-place winners in each region will receive a bench for their school, said reading specialist Valerie Brown, who runs the Green Club. Charter Next Generation, a manufacturer of specialty polyethylene films, is the challenge’s corporate sponsor. It is contributing up to $5,000 each to the elementary, middle and high schools that recycle the most plastic film in their regions. There are also cash prizes for the second and third place schools. The top recycling school overall will win an extra $2,500.
The competition is run by Trex Company, which makes composite decking and railing, in part, from post-consumer plastic film. The Virginia-based manufacturer has been running the Trex Plastic Film Recycling Challenge for 16 years. Center School has participated in three of them.
“We would love to win a bench this year, but our main goal is to prevent all of this plastic film from entering the landfill,” said Brown.
In the 2021 challenge, Center School lost its regional competition by one pound, collecting 1,257 pounds. Center School began collecting plastic in May of 2022 for this year’s contest, a move Brown said was approved by Trex. As of Feb. 10, the school had weighed 3,842 pounds of plastic. The plastic is collected and weighed weekly. After that, it is recycled at Big Y and Stop and Shop, two of nine participating supermarket chains in Massachusetts.
Despite starting as a project in the after-school Green Club, all students in the school are participating in the challenge and many have enlisted their families, neighbors and local businesses.
“We’ve been getting so many huge bags,” said fourth grader Brooke Talbert. “We’re working pretty hard, but it’s fun. I’m definitely joining Green Club next year.”
The challenge is specific about what plastics are to be collected. It must “pass the stretch test,” Talbert said, pulling her hands apart as if she were stretching the plastic film. Third grader Shuyler Puleo added that plastics with recycling codes 2 and 4 are eligible. “If you don’t know the answer, you should still bring it to us and we can tell,” he offered. Brown explained that the plastic the students are collecting is usually not recyclable at the household level because it “gums up” recycling machinery.
Green Club students are passionate about the environment. Talbert and fellow fourth grader Lainey Gamache had organized a neighborhood green club before learning about the school club, where they said their efforts have more impact. Gamache said she wanted to save the earth when she learned about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a 617,763-mile swirling mass of plastic and other marine debris that travels around the Northern Pacific Ocean due to ocean current patterns.
The students have taken lessons away from their time in the club. Gamache explained that they had learned it is better to reduce the amount of plastic used or reuse it when possible because many plastic items cannot be recycled. For example, Puleo said, his mother received reusable produce bags as a Christmas gift.
Puleo said, “If you need to use plastic, it’s okay, but you should try to recycle it.” He continued, “Before I came to Center School, I would say ‘big deal,’” when he saw discarded plastic, “but now I know it hurts animals and even people.” He added, “I would switch all my activities to collect garbage to save animals because they deserve to have a good life, just like us.”
Gamache said she has become more confident and comfortable asking people to contribute their plastic.
The Green Club has several different projects it is working on in addition to the Trex Challenge. The group collects markers to recycle and lightly used bed sheets to donate. The students reuse juice pouches by upcycling them into wallets and bags. They are also tracking a sea turtle named Esther as it swims off the Atlantic Coast of sub-Saharan Africa. The turtle tracking is part of a program from http://www.seaturtle.org.
“If anyone would like to help us recycle more plastic film, you may drop it off at Center School on Longmeadow Street,” said Brown.