Photo Credit: Suffolk News Herald
Wayne Jones at Morgan Memorial Library with some of the bags full of plastic bags that were collected for America Recycles Day.
For America Recycles Day, Suffolk Public Libraries opened their doors and within minutes citizens were steadily pouring into the Morgan Memorial and North Suffolk locations bringing their unwanted plastic bags, old batteries, retired cell phones and dried up ink cartridges. Keep Suffolk Beautiful organized the recycling drive joining thousands of local organizers holding recycling events across the country. America Recycles Day is a national initiative of Keep America Beautiful. In addition to collecting recyclables the two stations had free giveaways, storytime for children and a wealth of recycling information. “It was a really successful drive and the community came out to show their support,” said Kathy Russell, Chair of Keep Suffolk Beautiful, who was out at the North Suffolk location. Kathy reported that local high school students were taking selfies, homeowners were excited to empty a closet full of plastic bags and younger children had a great time at story time. “It was a lot of fun and people were grateful for such events to help prompt them to do some extra recycling.”
Oceanography students from Nansemond River High School were encouraged to recycle their bags to help keep our oceans clean. The Keep Suffolk Beautiful team at Morgan Memorial location was equally as popular and they were accompanied by the Virginia Master Naturalists who wanted to display their successful program for Fishing Line receptacles found at our city fishing hot spots. Claudia Lee a Master Naturalist said, “We wanted to partner with Keep Suffolk Beautiful as they funded our receptacle program and we wanted to show the public how much fishing line we have kept out of our waterways. It was also great to inform the public about the Virginia Master Naturalists, who we are, what we do and how you can join.”
At the end of the drive there were hundreds of batteries, boxes of ink and laser cartridges, two bags of old cell phones and enough bags to fill three large SUV’s. One of the SUV’s was sent to Nansemond River High School where the bags were delivered to teacher Sally Karadeema whose FCCLA class (The Family, Career, Community, Leaders of America) has been busy turning plastic bags into crocheted mats for the homeless. Ms. Karadeema who reached out to Keep Suffolk Beautiful for plastic bags for their project was extremely grateful to receive enough bags to complete it. Ms. Karadeema said, “It takes about 500 plastic bags to make one mat and I’m sure we now have more than enough to finish our target of five mats”. Ms. Karadeema kindly loaned Keep Suffolk Beautiful two finished mats to display at the drive and many of the people attending the event were there to recycle but also to support the student’s efforts.
The mats from Ms. Karadeema’s class are brilliant and the public thought so too. It was great to showcase their project and use it as a talking point for the need to recycle. The average person uses 500 bags a year and it takes about 500 bags to make one mat. The mat was a great visual to portray our message. We thank the students for their hard work and also Suffolk Public Libraries for hosting us. Keep Suffolk Beautiful would like the public to know they can recycle household batteries and ink cartridges all year long at all Suffolk Public Library Locations.
Blog contributed by Wayne Jones, Litter Control Coordinator with the City of Suffolk.