The Recycling Outreach Team’s “Community Spotlight” initiative highlights local stories about waste-sustainability. This month, we sat down with Karen Hadley, the Instructional Coach of Elementary Social Studies at Onteora Central School District, to learn about their TREX Film Plastic Recycling program. This program allows their student’s families to collect plastic bags and other recyclable thin plastic film, and drop off at the school’s collection point. Over the past year, the program has grown in scope to be a community-wide program, with the help of several dedicated students and their family’s outreach efforts. The collected film plastic is delivered to a local Hannahford Store and is recycled by TREX as part of the TREX School Recycling Challenge!
We want to congratulate them on such a successful recycling initiative and hope this story inspires other institutions to replicate this program! Film plastics are recyclable only in special drop off programs, and NOT in curbside recycling systems. If you enjoy this blog, or know someone who might, please consider sharing this story!
March 27, 2023
Community Spotlight Blog by Angelina Brandt, Director of Sustainability
Interviewer: Tanesia White, Recycling Educator
Interviewee: Karen Hadley, the Instructional Coach of Elementary Social Studies at Onteora Central School District
How did you first learn about the Trex Film Plastic Recycling Challenge?
I didn’t know much about it, until the students I was working with wanted to know why they couldn’t put the lamination into the recycling bin. We started to look into film plastic recycling and came across the [Trex] challenge. I got in touch with a teacher in Idaho who had been doing the challenge for 5 years and talked with her extensively, and we decided to go for it!
Why did you decide to participate in the challenge?
As an instruction coach for Social Studies, I am interested in opportunities to get [students] civically engaged in community events as citizens. [This program] connected to our learning about global warming. The [students] were excited to step up to the task, learn about recycling, and get their parents involved.
Image: Student Stella McDonald dropping off their family’s plastic bags in the collection bin provided by TREX.
What were your first steps in getting started?
We reached out to Trex they supplied us with posters, info sheets and large, white collection bins. Informing students began in the classrooms. Some 6th grade leaders from the Student Government have gone into classrooms to teach their younger classmates, as well as 7th graders, about film plastic recycling and the Trex Challenge. [This was] followed up by notes sent home to parents explaining what we were doing and how to get involved. A BOCES PR coordinator posted on Facebook and the District website for us.
How does this program work?
A core group of 6th grade students are responsible for weighing [the film plastic] and transporting it into a box truck. Then I drive it to Hannaford in West Hurley, our participating drop off site, to deliver the collected film plastic. This year, students have been reaching out to local businesses in the community as well. Now, people are talking on the soccer fields and in line at CVS wherever they roam, there are businesses that have signage up [to collect film plastics for the school challenge] and [the student’s families] go around and do weekly collections. Last count there are 38 local participating businesses!
Students Luka Kellerhouse (left) and Tori Cordero (right) help load a truck for delivery to their participating store.
“In my opinion, recycling is worth more than recess time [on the playground]. Recess is every day, and there’s 365 days a year… You only have one earth.”
How did your school community respond to the challenge, and to it’s success?
My colleagues at the school have been 100% supportive. Teachers and staff have requested bins for faculty rooms which now have collection areas. I can’t thank Custodian Brian Davis enough. Lets face it, this is an extra task even though the students are in charge of [the program, the Custodiams] are the ones that help make this happen! I also want to thank our Director of Buildings and Grounds, Kyle Harjes who is allowing me to use the box truck for every Friday, to transport 100-300 [large garbage bags filled with film] each week to Hannaford.
What was the original goal, and do you have a new goal for pounds collected per year?
Last year, which was our first year, I had no idea how much [we would collect]. We didn’t set a goal we just thought wouldn’t it be great if we won a bench [made from plastic]. TREX was so impressed that they sent us two benches! This year we expanded to Bennet Elementary School, our Principal, Gabriel Buono set a goal of 6000 lbs. which we already exceeded and we still have a month to go!
Students Tori Cordero (left) and AJ Bergen (right) carry bags of film plastics ready to be taken to their participating retail store.
“As of last Friday, 8,000 lbs of plastic bags and wrap has been collected. It was 1400 lbs last Friday, which was our biggest week ever! It is mind boggling for how big it has gotten! We are discussing needing a second box truck!”
Did you experience any pushback or challenges?
The biggest concern has been space [because of how much collected]. We have consistently outgrown each space we have tried to use! We had to transition to using an extra classroom, then using a shed that had PE equipment, and then we transitioned to appropriating the playground toy shed. The shed has now been moved and we’re still using that, along with a chain link enclosure attached so bags don’t blow out. Blowing plastic on school grounds has been a problem for custodians. Sometimes a bag doesn’t get tied up tightly. A few times we think animals may have gotten into the bags. There were a few occasions where plastic was strewn across the campus, understandably an issue for the custodians.
What do you wish other schools knew about your program and the impact on the students, teachers, parents, administrators etc.?
We have made morning announcements once per month. I keep a posting on the front of the school entrance so parents and visitors can see what we’ve done. When you attach numbers and comparisons to it, like our bulletin boards that shows 1,000 lbs is a grand piano, 3,000 lbs that’s a rhino, there is a compounding impact of their efforts – [people] can get their heads wrapped around enormous quantities of waste…. The remark I’ve heard most frequently was “I had no idea how much plastic film I was throwing away until I started to save it” – and it is staggering just how much one household can bring in. The real impact is for those families, getting into the habit of taking every little piece of plastic film and saving it and having a designated place to go each week.
Student Stephen Basalone helps load a truck for a delivery to the participating retail store.
What advice do you have for other schools who are looking to get started?
I took responsibility, I said “whatever doesn’t work, I will fix it!” There needs to be a point person willing to put the time in or [a program like this] can easily fall apart. It was a lot of work to get started and educate everyone. But once the kids started to get it, and they took ownership for it, it lessoned my burden so that now I [can supervise] to ensure things get done, but the kids do all the work reaching out to businesses and community members, doing interviews, writing thank you letters… And with UCRRA, we want to see it ripple out and reach more people.
“Collecting and recycling plastic film is the lessor of two evils. I want to admit, recycling plastic film is better than burning or burying it, but we still have [other] issues. The solution is not to encourage plastic manufactures to keep making plastic; that’s not why we’re recycling it with Trex. The solution, ultimately, is to stop making plastic and come up with other solutions. While its great for the citizenship aspect to get kids involved, and yes more school should do it, the long term solution is to petition plastic manufacturing companies to shift their goals and think about other forms of packaging, so we can get plastic out of our environment once and for all!”
Image: Student Bryce Leiter drops off their family’s film plastics in the collection bin provided by TREX.
Learn more about Film Plastic Recycling
NYS Department of Environmental Conservation: Film Plastic Recycling for Consumers
NEXTREX: School Recycling Challenge
NEXTREX: Educational Videos
PlasticFilmRecycling.ORG: Find a Local Drop Off Program Directory
