Benched: Plastic recycling project has Harrisburg Club sitting pretty

The Harrisburg-Keystone Club discovered the plastic recycling program from the President of the Friends of Fort Hunter, Richard Leitzel at one of our meetings. We immediately took the recycling on as a project because of Rotary’s emphasis on environmentalism.

 

We pair our collections with those of Penbrook United Church of Christ, a congregation who was also eager to find a way to recycle plastic. Two benches we earned are in Penbrook, one across from their Borough Hall and the other at their Little Valley summer camp.

 

In January we earned our fourth bench!

 

The benches are sturdy and will not deteriorate as wooden benches do over time.

 

The warehouse workers at the Capital Area Intermediate Unit also collect plastic for us, as well as various friends of members of the Club.

 

What we have all learned from this project is the overwhelming amount of plastic we use in our daily lives and how much of it would end up in a landfill without this program.

 

Here is the logistical information about the soft plastic recycling program run by Trex where you can earn a bench for your efforts.

 

Here is the website that outlines the program: https://nextrex.com/view/recyclingchallenge

 

It is for plastic films - so think plastic that you can crumple in your hand such as Ziploc bags, grocery store bags, plastic wrap for cases of water, bread bags, bubble wrap, plastic Amazon mailers, etc.

 

You register at that site and log your plastic drop offs. You simply drop the plastic off in collection bins at Giant, Wegmans, etc. on a regular basis and record your drop offs on the site. The website has a full list of collection centers. You have one year to collect 1,000 pounds of plastic and when you’ve done so Trex ships you a bench which you can assemble and place anywhere you’d like.

 

An organization can earn one bench every 12 months. The benches retail for $350-ish and Trex even lets you pick the color. They ship it free so there is no cost to the club. 

 

We have a club of roughly 25 members (with a few members collecting from coworkers, neighbors, church members, etc.) and it takes us just about a year to collect the 1,000 pounds.

 

We are also fortunate to we have a wonderful business partner (Appalachian Brewing Company) who collects much of their plastic from their operations (e.g. shrink wrap when they receive pallets of brewing supplies) for us as well. They deliver it in bulk once a year to a bulk recycling center and we can record that towards our total since it is being donated. ABC views it as a win/win since not only are they helping keep the plastic out of a landfill they reduce their waste costs by keeping it out of their trash. 

 

We already placed one bench on the Capital Greenbelt at the MLK Memorial Garden and given two to the borough of Penbrook to place in a park. We plan to donate the fourth bench to the Steelton-Highspire Elementary School for their playground. 

 

The plastic needs to be free of food waste with any paper (e.g. mailing labels) removed. Any hard pieces of plastic such as the hard zipper pieces you slide on Ziploc bags need to be removed.

I typically just drop off the plastic when I do my grocery shopping. (They prefer smaller drop-offs so thankfully you can donate as you collect it rather than finding somewhere to store 1,000 pounds of plastic to donate at once.) You need to weigh it (I do so at home on my bathroom scale - weighing myself with and without the plastic and calculating the difference) and take a photo of your drop off to upload when you record it on the web site. (I generally take a photo of the cart loaded with the plastic before I put it in the collection bin or a photo of the donation next to the bin). You record each drop off separately and just have to indicate where you dropped it off at (e.g. Giant in Carlisle), the weight and a photo. 

 

It’s pretty easy since most people collect that type of plastic and take it to the store to recycle already so it’s more a matter of getting them to give it to you or send you the details and photo when they drop it off as part of their regular shopping trip. You can also have multiple people in the organization register so they can record donations. Patty is the only one who records on the website for our club but other members just text me a photo with the weight if they drop some off. 

 

For further information, Patty and Becky shared their email addresses: pattyandjim@hotmail.com and 64beckster@gmail.com.