Macks Creek students go green in recycling contest

Third graders at Macks Creek Elementary helped reduce the volume of trash in landfills and will have a pizza party to celebrate their award-winning recycling efforts. The third grade classes won a recycling drive against some of their older peers by collecting more than 3,000 lbs. of paper and cardboard in just two months. Palmer Recycling, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and a host of other local sponsors organized a paper recycling contest amongst four grades at Macks Creek Elementary. A corresponding aluminum can drive netted 922 lbs. of recycled aluminum and a pizza party for the fifth grade class courtesy of CMC Recycling of Springfield.

Palmer Recycling owner Jerry Palmer of Macks Creek decided to put the recycling program together after he received a grant from DNR Solid Waste Management District T to purchase a tractor for his recycling facility. He felt that the elementary students would be enthusiastic about learning how cardboard and paper goods are recycled.

"It's one of the priorities of DNR to keep paper and cardboard out of landfills and get the paper back into use again," Palmer said.

The drive began at the beginning of November with a pizza party on the line for whichever grade recycled the most material. Local businesses began donating more prizes to the contest, to the point where each class earned something for its recycling efforts.

"The businesses were just overwhelming. All you had to do was just ask and all they did was say, 'here, what do you need?'" Palmer said.

Donors include Thompson's Country Store, the Old Town Cafe, the Camden County Sheriff's Office, Bank of Macks Creek, McDonald's, the Bank of Urbana, Edward Jones, Wal-Mart and the Lake Sun. State Sen. Chuck Purgason, R-Caulfield, sent the third, fourth, fifth and sixth grade students at Macks Creek Elementary a letter congratulating them on their effort to recycle and preserve the environment.

Aluminum recycling facts
• When you recycle aluminum, you save 95 percent of the energy that is spent to mine aluminum ore (bauxite) from the ground.
• Can manufacturers produced 96 billion aluminum cans last year in the United States. Approximately 58 percent of those cans are recycled. About 113,000 cans are recycled every minute.
• The Aluminum Association set a goal of reaching a nationwide 75 percent aluminum recycling rate by 2015. Paper recycling facts
• The average American will use 465 trees worth of paper over their lifetime.
• Paper and cardboard make up 73 percent of landfill space in the United States.
• Americans throw away about 1 billion trees worth of paper every year.
• Producing paper from raw materials causes 73 percent more air pollution than the process of producing recycled paper.