The Jaffrey Climate Initiative is giving the community a way to turn single-use plastic bags into something more sustainable for the community.
In April, the organization, which has the goal of finding ways for Jaffrey to improve recycling and reduce its carbon footprint, heard about a program run by the company Trex. Trex makes composite decking material that’s 95 percent recycled material, and also runs a plastic bag recycling challenge, where if groups or communities collect 500 pounds of plastic grocery bags within six months, the company will transform the plastic into a bench.
Carl Quefurth, a member of Jaffrey Climate Initiative, said they took on the challenge, and members Peggy Ueda, Elizabeth Webster, Heather Ames, Jim Webster, Janet Grant and Quefurth headed the bag collection.
“The idea is to collect 500 pounds in six months. Well, we collected 500 pounds in about six weeks,” Quefurth said.
The initiative set up collection bins at the town transfer station and Belletetes in Jaffrey, as well as Jaffrey Grade School and Conant High School.
The bench from the first batch of bags has been donated to Conant High School for their contribution, Quefurth said. Based on the rules of the program, the Jaffrey Climate Initiative can only submit 500 pounds of plastic every six months. Having far outstripped that goal, Quefurth said, they began to look for other community partners to sign up for the challenge.
“It’s interesting how many people are hoarding bags in their homes,” Quefurth said.
TEAM Jaffrey, a group dedicated to revitalizing and promoting downtown Jaffrey, was the next to sign up, and also quickly met its 500-pound goal. The Town of Jaffrey has, as a community, agreed to continue the challenge to receive its own bench.
Quefurth said it’s great to see a source of single-use plastic exiting the waste stream and turned into something sustainable, but he said one of the goals of the challenge is to raise awareness of the larger issue.
Several states have attempted to pass what is known as extended producer responsibility bills, which hold producers of plastic that is single-use or hard to recycle responsible for the costs associated with their products entering the waste stream.
In July, Maine became the first state to sign a producer responsibility bill into law. Under the law, packaging producers are financially responsible for funding recycling of some plastics, with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection set to start a rulemaking process for the program on or before the end of 2023.
Oregon joined Maine in August, with plans to implement it by 2025. Quefurth said he’d like to see New Hampshire join their ranks.
“I think we need to start to look back to where these products are coming from and bring some of the responsibility back to the manufacturer,” Quefurth said. “There are so many varieties of plastic out there, it’s hard for the community to get a hold of the waste stream and keep as much of it out of the landfill as possible.”
For information on the Trex plastic bag recycling program, visit recycle.trex.com.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.