Last February, a soft plastic recycling program kicked off in the area.
Ginny Paulson with the Riverside Lions said this whole program began as a competition between different local clubs because of the plastic bags that don’t decompose and people not knowing what to do with them. Since then, this program, where plastics are collected, weighed and made into donated benches, has grown rapidly.
The process here is soft plastics are collected at various locations, weighed in at Service Food, sent to the Trex Company, and then made into benches that are donated to the community. According to Paulson, with every 500 pounds of plastic, a bench is made. Currently, Rothsay, Elizabeth, Underwood and Fergus Falls are participating in this program. In the past 13 months 13,000 pounds have been collected and each town has received two benches so far.
Plastic items that can be collected include bread wrappers, bubble wrap, sandwich bags and cereal bags. It is asked that when the bags are dropped off they are bagged into bags so that they don’t blow around. Also, please avoid donating garbage and hard plastics.
In Fergus Falls there are collection bins at the Fergus Falls Senior Center, the public library, The Cottage at the RTC grounds, Trinity Lutheran Church, OLV, First Lutheran Church, Aastad Lutheran Church, Rock Prairie Lutheran Church and two at Fleet Farm.
Weigh-ins happen each Saturday from 11a-12p at Service Food so for anyone who has a bunch of plastic and didn’t get a chance to bring it to one of the collection bins during the week, they can go directly to Service Food.
Paulson said, “When we started we thought we’d weigh in once a month. That’s all we needed to do.” Fast-forward to the present and now she says, “We need to weigh in every week…we’re getting over 100 pounds every week.”
The city of Fergus Falls has two benches in storage right now that will be put in the dog park this spring.
There will be a seminar at the Fergus Falls Senior Center on Monday, March 14th starting at 11a for anyone interested in learning about all the items that are recycled and what they are recycled into.