Gilbertsville-Mount Upton successfully defended its Elementary Division title in the Otsego County Conservation Association’s Film Plastic Recycling Challenge, Otsego County Planning & Solid Waste announced April 23.
OCPSW Recycling Coordinator Shane Digan said via email that this year’s winners were determined based on per capita calculations (pounds per student). Our Recyclin’ Raiders collected a total of 786.8 pounds of film plastic in the Elementary Division for a winning average of 3.934 pounds per student!
GMU congratulates the nearby Morris Central School District for winning the Middle/High School Division (246.8 total pounds; 1.634 per student).
The Challenge was originally scheduled to run through April 1, but the COVID-19 pandemic suspended the contest as schools across the state closed in March for health and safety reasons. GMU Art Teacher and Recyclin’ Raiders team leader Ashley Hughes said our students collected more than 900 pounds of film plastic in two months.
Last year, GMU accounted for 1,821 of the 4,000 pounds collected during the Challenge en route to winning both the Elementary (6.78 pounds per capita) and MS/HS (1.88 ppc) divisions.
Hughes said students who collected film plastic after schools closed may save it for next year’s contest or recycle it through OCCA and participating grocery stores. Examples of film plastic are grocery bags, bread bags, case overwrap, dry cleaning bags, newspaper sleeves, ice bags, wood pellet bags, Ziploc/Baggies, produce bags, bubble wrap, salt bags and cereal bags.
Posted 4/29/2020