(Watertown, NY – May 2014) Architect Richard Rogers once said, “The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved,” and classrooms across Jefferson, St. Lawrence and Lewis Counties that participated in Cornell Cooperative Extension of Jefferson County’s 2nd Annual Plastic Bag Challenge did just that.
The School Plastic Bag Challenge was designed to heighten awareness of the importance to recycle plastic grocery bags and other plastic film such as; bread bags, produce bags, water bottle case wrap, toilet paper wrap, paper towel wrap and other clean & clear plastic films.
This year, 40 classrooms, consisting of 744 students, collected 174,249 plastic bags and other plastic film to be recycled, beating the total of last year’s collection by 33 area classrooms that collected 59,000.
“We have determined as a group that 1,000 plastic bags weigh about 20 pounds on average. The 174,000 plastic bags and film collected equals to over one and a half tons of plastic that was diverted from our local waste management facility. It is hard to comprehend how much recyclable plastic ends up in our landfill every year. Even though our contest results are impressive, it is just a drop in the bucket compared to all of the plastic that gets buried,” said Stevens.
According to Sayre Stevens, Recycling and Solid Waste Educator, other than learning the importance of recycling the students also developed their math skills while totaling their classroom’s bags.
“Plastic bags are a major source of litter and not collected in curbside recycling programs. The Plastic Bag Challenge’s main goal was to teach students and their families that plastic bags, bread bags and other clean plastic film can be recycled at the stores where they shop,” said Stevens. “Many of the teachers participating told me they did not expect the students to get so excited about this challenge. The teachers and students developed systems to count and keep track of the number of bags they collected. Even the kindergarten students learned how to count into the thousands.”
Out of the 40 classrooms firstplace was awarded to Dale Davidson’s Third Grade class at Antwerp Primary School. 18 students collected 22,073 bags, an average of 1226 bags per student. Second place was awarded to Brooke Santamonts’s First Grade class at Westside Elementary School in Gouverneur, with 23 students collecting 16,084 and made a video about plastic bag recycling and were awarded an extra 1,000 points, and Crystal McAllister’s First Grade class at Westside Elementary School in Gouverneur took third with 20 students collecting 11,830 bags and made a video about plastic bag recycling and were awarded an extra 1,000 points.
“Americans use and dispose of approximately 100 billion plastic grocery bags each year. In 2009 NYS passed the Plastic Bag Reduction, Reuse and Recycling Act which requires retail stores of a certain size to provide recycling receptacles in their stores for customer’s plastic bags. Despite that, the majority of plastic bags end up in the trash and are buried in the landfill. Stray plastic bags are a major source of litter and environmental pollution. A simple solution is to bring reusable shopping bags with you when you shop,” said Jan Oatman, Regional Recycling Coordinator for the Development Authority of the North Country.
The winning classroom will receive a visit from the New York State Zoo at Thompson Park.
For more information, contact Sayre Stevens, Recycling and Solid Waste Educator. (315) 788-8450.
The Recycling and Solid Waste Education Program is a partnership between Cornell Cooperative Extension Association of Jefferson County and The Development Authority of the North Country. The goal is to bring education about recycling, composting, and other materials management techniques to schools, businesses, and organizations in Jefferson, Lewis, and St. Lawrence Counties.