The Durant First Lego League is sponsoring a plastic bag drive in Durant. The plastic bags get recycled into hard plastic receptacles for recycling and trash and also park benches. The group is applying for a grant through Keep Iowa Beautiful to place recycling boxes in the Durant parks. All products manufactured by Plastic Recycling of Iowa Falls, Inc. are made from 100 percent commingled, post-consumer and/or post-industrial recycled plastic.
Why to recycle plastic bags
* Plastic bags are among the most common sources of marine debris, where they can be mistaken as food by birds and fish.
* Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, meaning it will take hundreds of years for them to decompose in a landfill.
* Recycling a ton of plastic bags (about 450,000 bags) saves 11 barrels of oil. Source: Earth911.
* 160,000 plastic bags are used globally every second.
* 5 trillion plastic bags are produced yearly. Side-by-side, they can encircle the world seven times.
* Plastic will only start degrading after 700 years and will only fully degrade in 1,000 years. This means that all the plastic that has ever been produced has not degraded yet.
* Only 1 to 3 percent of plastic bags are recycled worldwide. Source: EarthCounts
Tips for plastic bag recycling
* Remove anything inside the bags, such as receipts, stickers or crumbs. All these items will contaminate the bag load.
* Make sure any bags have a No. 2 or No. 4 plastic symbol on them. If not, you can’t be sure what plastic resin the bag is made from, so you’ll want to reuse it instead, before eventually throwing it away. Most plastic grocery bags are recyclable.
Please bring recyclable plastic bags to Jeff’s Market. There is a box near the registers to place bags. For bags to be picked up, please contact Lego League members Royce Richman at 563-212-4387 or Adam Wulf at 563-343-1709