Trex is the manufacturer of composite lumber made from wood and recycled plastic made from plastic film. Each year hundreds of schools across the nation compete against each other to recycle the most plastic film. In addition to providing a better understanding and appreciation for the importance of recycling, Trex donates a composite bench to the top two schools in each category. (ours can be seen and used in the courtyard outside of the library)!!!
Through advertisement, the environmental club, environmental classes, community donors, Mr. Phipps and Ms. Jessica Palmer (the parent who did ALL the transport of the plastic film, unarguably the most work) the high school collected 703 lbs of plastic film. While other schools beat us to #1, we placed second in the country for high schools equivalent to your size category (see attached PDF and email).
This represents a literal drop in the bucket of plastic pollution, however, we accomplished our goal to raise awareness of the issue of plastic pollution. The competition demonstrated that you can recycle plastic film so it does not end up in landfills or the ocean. 80% of marine animals have plastic in their guts and thanks to our current over-reliance on these “single use plastics” by 2050 the weight of plastic in the ocean is projected to exceed the weight of all the remaining fish in the ocean! We created the plastic pollution problem together and together we can solve it.
A huge thank you to all those who participated and has placed PAHS on the map! Thank you Mr. Phipps for taking this challenge on and being the point of contact!