News & Events

Return the Warmth
By JANICE R. KIASKI, Staff writer
(originally appeared in the Steubenville Herald Star)

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How can pupils and students collecting recyclable plastics keep somebody less fortunate warm?

The answer?

No. 1 plastics, such as soft drink, juice and water bottles, can be recycled to become the lining in jackets and coats for area residents in need — which is just one good feature about the recently launched “Return the Warmth” program involving area schools, according to officials.

Jefferson County Recycling and Litter Prevention is sponsoring this new contest through May 12, teaming up with Sam’s Club of St. Clairsville, Keep America Beautiful, the Belmont Jefferson Regional Solid Waste Authority and Choice Brands of Ohio in what is one of many programs that will mark the Great American Cleanup in progress through May 31.

“Instead of bottles covering the roadways, let’s join together and provide the less fortunate with jackets to cover their backs,” suggests Diane Julio, director of the county Recycling and Litter Prevention program, when she talks about the contest, along with co-worker Louise Holliday, special programs administrator.

The contest, which got under way April 1, works like this, they explained.

Schools interested in participating should contact the county Recycling and Litter Prevention office at (740) 283-8614 to receive two posters, inside recycling containers, 30-gallon trash bags, tally sheets and collection service. They will collect No. 1 and No. 2 plastics through May 12.

On the local level, the top three collectors of the No. 1 and No. 2 plastics will be awarded Sam’s Club gifts cards in the amount of $500, $250 and $125, respectively, thanks to a $2,500 Keep America Beautiful grant awarded to the county Recycling and Litter Prevention program, a KAB affiliate.

On the national level, Sam’s Clubs in top collecting school locations will award a $1,000 grant in the form of a Sam’s Club gift card to each of the selected top performing schools and to the partnering KAB affiliate. Winners on this level are determined by school enrollment and collection of No. 1 plastics only.

So far, there are nine Jefferson County schools participating, including Buena Vista Elementary; Roosevelt Elementary; and Wintersville Elementary, Bantam Ridge building; Edison High School; Richmond Elementary; Springfield Middle School; J.T. Karaffa Middle School; Hills Elementary; and Stanton Middle School.

More schools, however, are encouraged to come on board and get involved in the contest, an activity that Julio and Holliday said is open to parents, friends and neighbors to show support by donating their plastic bottles to individual schools.

“This is not only an opportunity for them to win, but an opportunity to help others, helping needy people receive coats and jackets,” Julio said, explaining the program will work with existing organizations regarding the coat distribution.

Stanton Middle School was the first school to come on board. Pat Martin, who is overseeing the program there along with teacher Austin Cable, said the pupils are gung-ho and so is she as a longtime recycling advocate who teaches a “reduce, reuse, recycle” unit in her fifth-grade science class.

Even so, “Return the Warmth” has taught her as much as it has the pupils.

“It’s been a real eye-opener,” Martin said, explaining she now takes stock of all the No. 1 and No 2 plastics and is expanding her recycling habit beyond collecting paper and aluminum cans.

The program is raising recycling awareness at the school, according to Martin. “We’ve talked about, even after the program is over, we’re going to individually continue to recycle,” Martin said, noting she’ll take her plastic recyclables to the Amsterdam Lending Library, which uses recycling profits to operate.

Martin said the “Return the Warmth” program teaches a valuable lesson. “They’re going to be using plastics all their lives,” she said. “Even if only a few do (continue to recycle), that means some start has been made toward encouraging recycling.”

The “Return the Warmth” contest goes beyond bragging rights for the winners and prizes won, however, as it raises awareness to the importance of “reduce, reuse, recycle,” according to Julio and Holliday.

“This has to become a lifelong practice and it’s forming a good, new habit. Children and adults have to become environmentally literate,” Julio said.

“We’re at a point where we believe the students we are reaching have a better understanding of the need for recycling and the part it plays in our environment and right now actually showing the public and getting parents and others involved,” Julio said. “They (students) are helping us with our education. We try to teach kids the reasons why (to recycle) and practices and have always known they take it into their homes and we’re now seeing the benefit of that,” she added.

“Return the Warmth” is one of many activities planned in observance of the Great American Cleanup that also include coordinating schools to conduct campus cleanups, for example, and working with volunteers to do adopt-a-roadway projects.

“(The Great American Cleanup) is to clean up your area, to beautify it, to eliminate graffiti and clean up illegal dumps, plant flowers and plant trees on Earth Day,” Holliday said. “It’s to make your surrounding areas a beautiful place to live.”

While the two-month Great American Cleanup focuses on litter cleanup and recycling, the county Recycling and Litter Prevention program is a year-round effort, a behavior modification program, “which is where it begins,” according to Julio.

“We go into the schools and into the communities and we try to teach people to get back to your grass roots, show pride, show sense of ownership and practice good stewardship in your areas,” Julio said.

“One of our big things in our area is our area is economically depressed and we’re trying to attract new business and industries and this plays a major role in developing an area,” Julio added.

“These months right now — March through May — is the time of year when the snow is gone and you start instead of seeing flowers pop up, you see litter pop up,” Julio said. A clean area promotes a sense of well-being, an attitude of pride, she said. A littered environment does just the opposite.

“This is what we’re doing — making people feel positive about our area and appreciating what we have and everyone working together to make Jefferson County as we always say a cleaner, greener more beautiful place to live in and visit,” Julio said.

Littering is a learned behavior as much as not littering is. “They start out with a little cigarette butt and it’s absolutely nothing to throw it on the ground or an apple core — the birds will eat it — and it becomes a habit, a practice and when you throw one little thing out, are you going to stop and think every time you have something in your hand, oh, OK, I can throw this out, I can’t throw that out, no,” Julio said. “Once you start with something little — a gum wrapper, whatever — it becomes an automatic pattern and this is all over the country,” she added.

“This is what we have to teach people and along with educating them, enforcement is part of that,” Julio said.

Patrick Lanaghan, executive director of the Belmont/Jefferson Regional Solid Waste Authority, said hopes are to fund a litter enforcement officer for both counties as revenue becomes available. The solid waste authority is the agency responsible for reducing the amount of solid waste produced in the district. “We basically work with the two counties’ recycling and litter prevention programs to implement plans to increase recycling and reduce the amount of waste going to landfills,” Lanaghan said.

Jefferson County Recycling and Litter Prevention has been doing “a wonderful job with very limited resources,” but will hopefully have more funds for more programs as revenue from landfill tipping fees is realized.

With garbage service not a mandate in the county, “a lot of people to save money just take their garbage and throw it over the hillside someplace and that’s one of the problems we face,” Lanaghan said.

Julio explained a study enabled the tracking of 65 percent of the garbage in Jefferson County, factoring in what number of residents use garbage service and what happens in remote areas, for instance.

“People go to great lengths to get rid of their garbage,” Julio said. “They take it to work, they take it and put it in a Dumpster behind a business, they take it into small communities and put it in their trash receptacles in their parks.” Some are even brazen enough, she said, to be aware of garbage pickup schedules and place it in front of someone else’s home.

“It’s just amazing — all that to avoid a monthly bill of about $6.50,” she said.

Continuing to educate people about recycling is important, according to Lanaghan.

“Ultimately, the goal of any recycling program is to reduce the amount of waste going into a landfill,” he said. “Landfill space you can save now is going to help out in the future when space becomes more of a priority, like right now look at New Jersey. They have no place to put their trash and they’re looking for places to put it and we don’t want Ohio to end up in that same circumstance,” Lanaghan said.

While there’s always room for improvement, recycling is catching on in the county, according to Julio.

With full-time and part-time recycling containers at various locations throughout the county (for a complete schedule, contact the office), the drop-off recycling program saw increases in 2005, with plastics and metals collection up 61 percent from 2004 and paper up more than 24 percent. “Already this year with the first quarter not over, we’re already above last year’s by about 12 percent,” Julio said.

Although some people say they can’t bothered with recycling, others are enthusiastic, she said. “It’s not an inconvenience. It’s a habit and once you form a habit, it’s an automatic thing,” she said.

“We’ve had a lot of positive comments about our recycling from people when we’ve been out there, and last week was a first — we actually had a gentleman that tipped one of our guys and thanked him for the recycling program,” she said.

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