Pasco High shares in the reward
By Kyle LoJacono
Despite being run entirely by volunteers, Keep Pasco Beautiful was recognized as one of the top plastic bottle recyclers nationwide.
The group was one of nearly 600 organizations affiliated with Keep America Beautiful that participated in a challenge from Nestlé Waters North America to recycle the most bottles. The challenge was tied to the Great American Cleanup last year, which was from March through May.
“What we did was we challenged all the schools in Pasco County to recycle as many bottles as they could,” said Jennifer Seney, Keep Pasco Beautiful president and the county’s recycling coordinator. “We collected 24,580 pounds of plastic bottles and that really is something the kids should be proud of.”
The more than 12 tons of plastic is more than the average weight of two adult African elephants. The county contributed the seventh most of any affiliate in 250,000 or greater population category. The honor comes with $1,000 award from Nestlé.
“This puts us on the map,” Seney said. “Other groups around the country are much larger and have more funding, so for our group to do this with just volunteers is impressive. Keep Milwaukee Beautiful had the most bottles recycled with more than 1 million pounds, but they are much larger than we are.”
Seney offered another challenge to the 13 public high schools in Pasco to see which could contribute the most plastic. Pasco High finished on top with 707 pounds recycled and was given $500 for its efforts.
“That’s a great thing,” said Pasco principal Pat Reedy. “I’m proud of the kids here, but I’m never surprised by what they do.”
Reedy said the school has had bins to collected recycled paper and plastic bottles for several years thanks in large part to the Pirates science department head Don Charlick.
“Don has headed up the recycling effort at Pasco and does a great job getting the kids to understand it is important,” Reedy said. “Each Thursday on our school’s news show we remind the students to recycle. It’s part of what we all need to do.”
Seney said a lot of the credit goes to Karen Bryant, the Pasco County School District’s recycling coordinator.
“It gets the kids excited about recycling,” Seney said of Bryant’s efforts in the district. “She does a lot of great things to show kids that recycling is important.”
The rest of the award money will go to the 2011 Great American Cleanup, which is always celebrated in the county the third Saturday in April. The money will mostly be used to buy bags for the trash and recycled items and other materials for the effort.
Seney said the group is always looking for cleanup site captains and volunteers for the annual effort.
“We have locations all over the county, so people won’t have to go too far to help,” Seney said.
To learn more about this year’s cleanup, call Seney at (727) 847-8041 or e-mail her at . For more information on Keep Pasco Beautiful, visit www.keeppascobeautiful.org.
