The organization's outreach has included development of fact sheets, tool
kits, brochures, guides, and booklets of all kinds intended to assist
specific constituencies in improving their recycling programs. The schools
participating in this project include a high school, middle school, and
two elementary school sites that are part of the same school system in
Altoona, PA. Each has had some degree of recycling success. But none has
sufficiently addressed the PET collection issue, despite its significant
growth over the last five or six years. Very good aluminum can recycling
efforts have turned into sub-par or nonexistent PET recycling programs.
Additionally, as Pennsylvania's sole state-wide recycling organization,
PROP will be able to use this experience and the materials produced as
part of the project as a model for schools throughout the Commonwealth.
As PROP again reaches out to municipal and school recycling coordinators
to improve school programs from paper to containers, this project will
teach many valuable lessons.
Project Overview:
The project will include five major components.
An evaluation of the recycling program at each school site
The development of an educational strategy and related printed and
recycling messages
Purchase of appropriate receptacles and development of attractive
and effective signage
Education of both school staff and students
Planning for both in-school and hauler collection of material
Evaluation: Discussions
will be held with the administration, students, and custodial staff
in order to gather information about the schools.
Education Program Development: Stressing a theme
that tries to muster pride in being an environmentally sound school,
posters will be developed to encourage staff, students, and visitors
to recycle.
Receptacles: After determining the best locations,
new containers will be purchased. Indoors, these will be the green
PET receptacles available through NAPCOR, while outdoor containers
will be a heavier, more weather resistant receptacle.
Education: Posters will be printed and posted throughout
all four sites. As part of this promotional effort, PET rulers will
be customized and be distributed to each student and staff member.
Collection: We will work with the schools' administrators
and custodial staffs to make sure that in-school collection happens
regularly.
Arrangements will be made with the waste/recycling hauler to be
sure that a proper container is at each school and that the schools
are on the firm's recycling collection schedule.
Program Sustainability
A grant from NAPCOR will enable the schools to purchase new or replace
older recycling containers, providing recycling infrastructure that should
help maintain the program for some time. The program should be reinvigorated
in many ways. Most importantly, it will help renew the school communities'
and administration's commitment to recycling
