Recycling With A Purpose
Gilbert-area schools teamed with the East Valley Recycling Alliance, including
the Town of Gilbert, TREX and Bashas’ grocery stores, to “Bench the Bag” – a
contest to collect soft plastic bags which can cause havoc to recycling machinery
when placed in blue recycling containers.
On April 22 (Earth Day), Penny Minkalis was on site at Benjamin Franklin
Charter School to honor a few students from that school. "You all did
a great job collecting bags", she said, "but a couple of your students
exceeded expectations". Among those students were Brooklyn Montgomery,
Kiriko Westover, and Amber Tingue, who was by far the largest individual
contributor to the bag drive across all 26,000 plus participants. She collected
over 6,000 bags, which was nearly twenty times the average student. When asked
how she gathered so many bags, Amber responded, "I started by going
door to door throughout my neighborhood and just asking for any bags I
could get." " After that my sister Autumn and I asked local businesses
if we could solicit their customers for their recyclable bags and several
companies agreed to let us do so", she stated.
Between February 1st and March 28th, 19 Gilbert-area schools collected 827,362
grocery bags and other soft film plastics totaling over six tons in weight. No
longer destined for the landfill, the plastics have become a sought-after
commodity that can be used to create new products including clothing and faux
wood. Collectively, more than 70 schools in six municipalities collected
approximately 15 tons of soft plastics – aiding the long term sustainability of
community landfills.
Benjamin Franklin Elementary Principal, Diana Dana stated her pleasure with her
students at the ceremony, by saying, "You all should be proud of your
efforts. You continued to collect up to the very last day and never stopped
believing you could win the contest". Although Benjamin Franklin is half
the size of the winning school they gave a very close race to Imagine
West.
Imagine West of Gilbert was the winning school, collecting 1,761 pounds or 3.24
pounds for every student enrolled. In recognition of Imagine West’s significant
achievement, the school will receive a TREX bench made of recycled plastics.
Ben Franklin Elementary, Power Ranch Elementary and Augusta Ranch Elementary
also received an honorable mention for the high volume collected.
The idea of the program was to raise awareness for recycling among all age
groups to promote a healthier environment. From the turnout of this years group
effort, it looks as though giant steps have be taken towards that cause. We
were remind by the highly productive sixth grader from Benjamin Franklin, Amber
Tingue just how far we have to go however. "It's really nice to see all
the schools efforts for this contest," she said, "but everyone has to
know that true recycling has to become a way of life, if we want to see a
change."
Picture Below (from left to right) Penny Minkalis (Town of Gilbert), Olivia
Seawell (BFCS facility), Brooklyn Montgomery (2nd Grade BFCS), Kiriko Westover
(6th Grade BFCS), Dortha Lane (6th Grade Teacher), Amber Tingue (6th Grade
BFCS/Contest Winner), Diana Dana (BFCS Principal)
