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Organize a trash-to-treasure drive where material is collected for reuse by local organizations.

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Organize a trash-to-treasure drive

Why Act?

Each day Americans generate heaps of trash that wind up in landfills or incinerators, polluting our land, air, and water. To get a sense of how much trash is actually generated, consider the following:

  • Every year we fill enough garbage trucks to form a line that would stretch from the earth, halfway to the moon!
  • Each year, Americans trash enough office paper to build a 12-foot wall from Los Angeles to New York City!
  • Only two manmade structures on Earth are large enough to be seen from outer space: the Great Wall of China and the Fresh Kills landfill in New York!
Obviously, that’s a lot of trash, and anything we can do to reduce our trash will benefit the planet. Thankfully, there’s a great way to reduce trash that might otherwise end up in a landfill. Some schools and businesses can actually use waste that would normally end up in the garbage. So rather than throwing certain items away, collect them instead, and send them off to be used for another purpose!

Action Steps

Taylor Elementary has sponsored a Trash-to-Treasure drive, where reusable items can be dropped off right at the school. Also, these items can be directly delivered to local organizations that can make use of them. Local organizations accept the following for reuse and/or recycling. For an up-to-date list of items and the organizations that will accept them go to www.taylorpta.org/TrashToTreasureDirectory2008.pdf

  • Batteries
  • Blankets
  • Bubble wrap (See “Packaging”)
  • Cardboard boxes (See “Packaging”)
  • Cell Phones
  • Drycleaning hangers
  • Fabric
  • Film canisters
  • Lids and bottle caps
  • Nursery planting pots
  • Packaging
  • Packing peanuts
  • Plastic bags (grocery or newspaper)
  • Plastic yogurt cups, tubs, amber prescription bottles
  • Printer cartridges (ink jet)
  • Shoeboxes
  • Shrinkwrap
  • Styrofoam blocks
  • Tyvek envelopes
  • Yarn
Recycle your old athletic shoes. Through the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program, your old shoes can be recycled into material that is used to make basketball and tennis courts, soccer fields, and running tracks.
For more information, please see: kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/WackyStories/Guinness-shoes

Resources:

www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html

choosetoreuse.googlepages.com/

www.taylorpta.org/TrashToTreasureDirectory2008.pdf


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