Friday,
April 23, 2010
Most
plastic bottles collected - Florida students sets world
record
BRADENTON, Fla., USA -- In anticipation of
Earth Day, students at Sugg Middle
, Braden River
High
, Nolan Middle
and Braden River Middle
participated in the last day of a year-long recycling campaign
initiated by Sugg seventh-grade students; the group collected
65,970 plastic bottles to help set an example that recycling
is necessary and a community effort - setting the new world
record for the Most
plastic bottles collected
.
Photo: Students at Sugg Middle School
count recyclable plastic bottles Friday as they load them
into 20-foot-long waste containers. The bottles were collected
by Sugg students as well as students from Braden River High
School, Nolan Middle School and Braden River Middle School
all year long. Photo by PAUL VIDELA/bradenton.com ( enlarge
photo
)
The
previous Guinness world record for the Most
plastic bottles collected
in 8 hours was 40,000
bottles (657 pounds) of plastic bottles collected by Discovery
Elementary students.
The bottles will be sent to Resource
Recovery Center Systems in Sarasota.
If you can picture large recycling dumpsters
and a mountain of plastic bottles and containers, then you
can just imagine how much effort and heart students put into
saving the environment for Earth Day.
But the youth were overjoyed to make a
difference in the world and, as one community, turned hard
work into a simple recycling solution.
Sugg Middle was chosen as the site for this
event because it has collected more recyclable material than
any other school in the district during the last two years.
Additional sponsors included the Manatee
County Recycling Department, Publix, Republic Services, Keep
Manatee Beautiful and the new home-town baseball team, the
Bradenton Marauders.
Mike Barber, spokesman for the District,
said that Manatee County was especially proud of the Sugg
Middle students and their efforts to encourage their fellow
students and family members to recycle.
“The students at Sugg wanted to make a difference
in their school, community and world, and today they did just
that,” said Patrick Gallagher, the Energy and Recycling specialist
for the Manatee County School District, who was at the school
to help the students and teachers move the project along during
the event.
“They didn't just learn about recycling.
They embraced it and shared their knowledge with friends,
family and neighbors.”
“It helps the kids to understand the importance
of recycling,” he said, watching the students toss small bins
of plastic into the larger bins for recycling.
“A plastic bottle will last 500 years if
it ends up in a landfill. Where, if we recycled that same
bottle, it could come back as, say, a 50 percent recycled
t-shirt.” Ultimately, Gallagher said he wanted the kids to
take the recycling habit home because youth make a difference
by setting an example for all.
Gallagher added that the youth made a big
difference in the environment, and he believes everyone should
think twice before tossing that plastic bottle in the trash.
“Help us out one bottle at a time to make a difference,”
he said. “Please don’t take it to the landfill. Take it to
be recycled.”
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Friday,
April 23, 2010
