SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — After two weeks of work through wet and blustery spring winds, Greenfield Elementary School students have gathered a whopping 20,064 discarded plastic bags.
French teacher for Grades 4-6, Robyn Toole, said the Plastic Bag Grab Challenge, a nationwide initiative created by the Recycling Council of Ontario, is about making students think critically about how people use disposable plastics.
“Having the students collect the plastic bags was a real wake-up call. Sometimes you go to the grocery store and take away just one plastic bag and that may seem fine, but there’s a whole bunch of people doing the same thing and it all adds up,” said Toole.
Since 2016, more than 52 metric tonnes of single-use plastic bags have been collected by students across Canada and recycled as part of the environmental awareness program.
“I’m surprised how many bags of plastic we collected as a school,” said Grade 6 student Chloe Hardy.
“I will definitely opt for reusable bags in the future because, as a class, we collected 5,000 plastic bags.”
To motivate the students, teachers encouraged friendly competition between classes.
“I was surprised how aware and interested the kids became over the two weeks,” said Michelle Rioux of Resource and Grade 6.
“At the end of the day we would announce what class had the most bags, and then kids would get excited to continue.”
The challenge encouraged students to reduce, reuse and recycle.
“The kids were running the show and we just supervised. They oversaw collecting and counting the plastic bags in each class, making the announcements, and lots of teamwork and leadership skills were shown over recess each day,” added Rioux.
Out of all the plastic bags collected, Rioux said one stood out — a Zellers bag from the retail store that closed seven years ago.
Grade 6 student Harrison Ramsay said, to raise awareness about plastic pollution, he ventured out each day – rain or shine – to collect bags for recycling with his classmates.
“We were out wearing only our Greenfield hoodies when it was pouring with rain.
“It made us realize how much these plastic bags add up because one day we collected more than 3,000.”
Classmate Gavin O’Keefe raised the direct and deadly effect plastic pollution has on wildlife.
“It kills animals and ruins the environment because of the landfills,” he said.
The plastic bags collected by students and piled onto the back of a truck, were dropped at Walmart to be reused and recycled into composite decking and furniture.
To learn more about the Plastic Bag Grab Challenge, visit plasticbaggrab.com.
