Plains Woman's Club brings recycling to fair

PLAINS - Once again Plains Woman’s Club will make it possible for fairgoers to participate in a plastic recycling project by depositing their plastic water and pop bottles in specially marked garbage cans, which will be placed near containers for other garbage. The Woman’s Club will be responsible for keeping the recycling cans emptied and relined as they fill.

Plastic bottles are an indispensable and ubiquitous part of our lives. They account for a large part of the waste generated by our throwaway society. Plastic bottles are the most recycled plastic items, but still the recycle rate is only about 24 percent. When a ton of plastic bottles are recycled approximately 3.8 barrels of petroleum is saved.

When plastics are reused, the substitution of recycled materials reduces the emission of greenhouse gases that are produced in the manufacturing of virgin materials. Further, not having millions of plastic bottles in the landfill results in a saving of 6.7 cubic meters of landfill space that is at a premium right now. Plastic bottles also take an average of 500 years to biodegrade.

Last year Plains Woman’s Club was able to recycle 11 bags of plastic bottles after sorting through the 15 or so bags they gathered, throwing out trash that had accidently been put in the recycling bags. That is double what was collected in 2011.

Club members hope that fairgoers this year will help them save even more of those recyclable plastics.