To mark Earth Day this year, Flin Flon School Division students cleaned up Flin Flon’s act, one plastic bag at a time.
Many scientists estimate that plastic bags take hundreds of years to decompose – if they decompose at all – so most plastic bags in the area will likely end up sitting in landfills for generations.
This year, École McIsaac School and Ruth Betts Community School students became part of the solution by participating in the national Plastic Bag Grab Challenge, where elementary schools compete to collect plastic bags from April 18 to 22.
On Earth Day, April 22, École McIsaac students and teachers gathered to celebrate the students’ impressive haul: 22,458 plastic bags in just one week.
At Ruth Betts Com-munity School, students gathered 6,100 bags for recycling.
To reinforce the message of the challenge, Ruth Betts teacher Craig Bancroft led his Grade 3 students in a song about recycling and conservation, featuring a catchy chorus about plastic bags. A video of the song spread quickly on social media, receiving 3,236 views on Facebook as of Thursday morning.
The collected plastic bags were dropped off at Flin Flon’s Walmart, one of the challenge sponsors, and were sent to central recycling depots for processing.
Schools that collect the most bags in their provinces can win cash prizes from the Plastic Bag Grab Challenge. The prizes, which can be put toward environmental initiatives in the school, will be announced in September.
