Smith’s Associates Recycles Plastic Bags Into Park Benches

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Smith’s Food & Drug will organize a one-day collection event on April 17th, in preparation for Earth Day which falls on April 22. It will organize an in-store volunteer event on that day. The event will engage with customers in as many as 141 stores to educate them on the need for recycling plastic waste and provide information on available recycling services. The plastic materials thus collected will be recycled into useful products such as park benches, plastic landscape bricks and plastic lumber.

In a press release, Aubriana Martindale, Smith’s Corporate Affairs Manager said that Earth Month is a great catalyst for action and awareness. She urged customers not to throw out plastic shopping bags and other plastic items and instead, encouraged them to deposit them in containers placed at stores.

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The accepted materials include bubble wrap, plastic overwrap around paper towels, cereal box liners, bread bags, dry cleaning bags, produce bags, newspaper sleeves, plastic shipping envelopes and clean sandwich bags.

As per available data, Smith’s recycled approximately 39 million pounds of plastic from its stores during the previous year. It has already committed to phase out single-use plastic bags by 2025.