Since October of 2022 there have been plastic collection bins in each of the Freedom School District buildings. All of the bins are located in the schools’ lobbies next to the office. 

The bins were originally put there by Cooper Brien and his family as part of a social justice project for Temple Ohav Shalom. Once they reached their goal of 500 pounds of plastic in six months, they would receive a bench for their temple.

 Since then they have reached their goal and continued the program for the school with another goal of 500 pounds. However, the company in charge of the program, NexTrex, raised the goal to 1,000 pounds halfway through the program. Fortunately, because of being already halfway through, they only had to do the 500 pound goal. After the goal for the school’s bench was met, the Brien family stopped running the program because of the amount of space the plastic took up. The amount of time that it took to collect, weigh, and find a date to drop off the plastic also affected the decision.

Ms. Jeanine Ging is considering continuing the program along with Ms. Sara Heiman and Mrs. Sara Miller.

“Cooper seemed to be having such great success that I felt it was beneficial to continue the program,” Ms. Ging, 6th grade teacher, said. “The program has collected massive amounts of plastic that would have been thrown away.”

“I think it went really well, I liked that a lot of teachers and students helped to reach the 500 pound goal. I also liked that it helped the environment in the process of doing that,” Cooper Brien, 8th grade student, said.

Once each of the goals are met a bench will be given to the school. The Brien family assembled the bench at their home and delivered it to the school. Tracy Brien, Cooper’s mom, delivered the school’s bench for the courtyard on Feb 26. 

If you would like to take part in NexTrex’s recycling challenge or wish to learn more about the challenge itself, then you can visit nextrex.com for more information.