Project R-OK?

Vital Stats

Michael C

Owensboro, KY

  • people helped55000
  • People Doing It 10

The Problem

The problem we are trying to solve is a lack of recycling opportunities. In our community, unlike many cities, Owensboro does not have a system-wide recycling program. Recycling is important because it conserves our natural resources, saves landfill space, conserves energy, and reduces water and air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. On average, Owensboro throws away 3,976,000 plastic bottles annually! If someone were to stack these bottles 40 bottles across and 40 bottles deep (10 x10 feet), the tower would be approximately 1866 feet tall! That is bigger than the Sears Tower! As members of the Owensboro Catholic Community Problem Solving Team, we are taking the initiative to transform Owensboro into a greener city by working to institute the use of recycling bins in our parks, schools, and recreational facilities. We are going to focus our recycling efforts on plastic bottles.

Plan of Action

This year, the issue we wanted to address is the recycling of plastic bottles. As of now, we have sent out letters to politicians, media, and sports figures to ask them for their support. We have also contacted schools in our community to request their participation and some have responded and informed us that they would be willing to cooperate. We conducted an interview with the general manager of Resource Recycling (one of the recycling locations in our community) in order to discuss our options regarding recycling and to have a better understanding of the direction that we should be moving. We also had another interview with the Daviess County judge executive where he informed us about who to contact to get our project approved and who to talk to visit one of our community landfills. He also told us we had his full support. Regarding the future of this project, we are awaiting responses to our letters. We will also contact the leads given to us by the general manager of Resource Recycling and the Daviess County judge executive. To continue our project, we need the monetary support this seed grant will provide in order to purchase the plastic bottle recycling bins that will be placed in our parks, schools, and recreational facilities.
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Environment
Recycling

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