Oviatt Elementary Wins Recycling Contest-----Thanks to the Norwalk Community

Pictured from left to right:  Amy Hock (Metro Waste Authorities), Bryan Greiner (Fareway Foods), Mary Gillaspey (Metro Waste Authorities), Dave Murillo (Norwalk City Council), Jerry Fleagle (Executive Director of Iowa Grocery Industry Association), Dr. Denny Wulf (Superintendent of Schools), Julie Brincks (Oviatt Chair of Recycling Program), Dr. Laura Sivadge (PK-K Principal), and Rodney G. Martinez (1^st and 2^nd Grade Principal.)

Iowa Grocery Industry Association and Metro Waste Authority Announce Build with Bags School Challenge Winners

IGIA and Metro Waste Authority team up to stress importance of recycling
to elementary school students

November 15, 2010 – Iowa Grocery Industry Association (IGIA) and Metro Waste Authority today announced that Mitchellville Elementary in Mitchellville, Lovejoy Elementary in Des Moines and Oviatt Elementary in Norwalk won the Build with Bags School Challenge.  Each of the winning elementary schools will receive a piece of outdoor furniture made from recycled plastic for winning the challenge. 

This year the participating schools competed within three size categories: small (1-299 students), medium (300-599 students) and large (600+ students).  The small category winner, Mitchellville Elementary from the Southeast Polk School District, recycled 610 pounds of plastic shopping bags and received credit for 367 reusable bags.  Lovejoy Elementary, from the Des Moines Public School District and the medium category winner, recycled 466 pounds of plastic shopping bags and received credit for 146 reusable bags. The large category winner, Oviatt Elementary from the Norwalk School District, recycled 821 pounds of plastic shopping bags and received credit for 949 reusable bags.

Oviatt Elementary wants to say thank you to everyone who participated in this year's challenge!  Mrs. Julie Brincks has chaired this endeavor for the past two years.  Everyone’s joint efforts helped us move from last year’s 2^nd place to 1^st place this year!  Thank you to our students, their families, and community members that kept bringing the plastic bags to school so we could recycle them.  The community also used their reusable shopping bags during this challenge.  Please continue to be good role models for our children and recycle those plastic bags and bring your own bags when shopping!

In addition, Oviatt wants to thank everyone at Scott’s Foods, especially Scott Havens and Nancy Hildreth, as well as Fareway Food employees, especially Bryan Greiner because both stores took our bags to weigh and communicate with Metro Waste Authority.  They also promoted the use of reusable shopping bags to earn credit for our school during this challenge.  We could not have won without such great community support.  Norwalk Community always steps up whenever the school district needs help.

The Build with Bags School Recycling Challenge started October 4, 2010.  Twenty-nine schools competed to see whose students could recycle the most plastic bags and/or use the most reusable shopping bags over the five week period. The program was developed to educate students about the importance of recycling or reusing shopping bags while localizing America Recycles Day.

"Iowa Grocery Industry Association was proud to team with Metro Waste Authority to offer this great program to elementary schools to help teach children about the importance of recycling," said Jerry Fleagle, Iowa Grocery Industry Association President.  "IGIA launched the Build with Bags program in our stores statewide in August and this local School Challenge was a great way to bring attention to the importance of recycling the plastic shopping bags."

Tom Hadden, Executive Director of Metro Waste Authority continued, "The program received a great response from participating schools.  Our goal was to raise awareness about the issue of plastic shopping bags becoming litter, and teach skills to begin to divert that waste.  Participating schools recycled approximately 6,800 pounds of plastic shopping bags, which is equivalent to 408,000 plastic bags, in just five weeks.  Those numbers are incredible and we couldn’t be more pleased."

Participating schools that recycled at least 100 pounds of plastic shopping bags and received credit for using 75 reusable bags will get a $100 store gift card.

The plastic bag recycling challenge is in its fourth year and this is the second year that Metro Waste Authority and IGIA have partnered.  This program was successful in educating students about the importance of recycling and environmental stewardship.  Area elementary schools collected used plastic shopping bags and delivered them to their local grocery store for recycling.  The participating elementary schools got credit for the weight of the plastic bags they recycled at the stores. 

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About the Iowa Grocery Industry Association

The Iowa Grocery Industry Association is a state trade association that represents the food industry, including chain and independent supermarkets, convenience stores, mass merchandisers, wholesalers, brokers, manufacturers and distributors. Founded in 1899, the IGIA has long served as a resource to its members, the food industry and the general public through education, legislative, partnership and philanthropic programs. Headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, the IGIA can be found online at http://www.iowagrocers.com/.

About Metro Waste Authority

Metro Waste Authority (MWA) is an award-winning regional government agency that manages the Metro Park East Landfill, the Metro Park West Landfill, the Metro Compost Center, the Metro Recycling Center, the Metro Transfer Station, and the Regional Collection Center for Household Hazardous Materials.  MWA also coordinates recycling programs for its member communities and is a leader in many environmental issues in Central Iowa.  Metro Waste Authority is self-funded through fees charged to those who use the landfill and its other services.  The agency does not receive tax dollars. http://www.mwatoday.com/

About Build with Bags

The Build with Bags program is a cooperative effort of the Iowa Grocery Industry Association, Keep Iowa Beautiful, Metro Waste Authority, Iowa Department of Natural Resources and The Des Moines Register. Over the course of several months, representatives of each of these organizations witnessed focus groups convened to discuss plastic bag issues and then met to develop a program aimed at demonstrating how Iowa grocers could help to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags. In addition to reducing the environmental footprint of plastic bags, the goal of the group was also to provide an effective alternative to plastic bag bans and the unintended consequences that often result from bans and other related regulatory efforts.