A plastic film partnership

Plastic film has been notoriously difficult to recycle.

The material is excluded from many curbside recycling programs because of its reputation as a “tangler,” as plastic film can get caught in equipment at material recovery facilities (MRFs), slowing operations and posing safety risks to employees who have to detangle the material from the machines.

But Trex Co. Inc., a Winchester, Virginia-based producer of decking and railing products made with recycled content, and state agency Keep Arkansas Beautiful (KAB) have partnered in an attempt to solve this issue, making polyethylene (PE) film recycling more accessible to Arkansans.

Trex processes recovered plastic film into flakes at its manufacturing facilities in Winchester and Fernley, Nevada, combining the flakes with reclaimed lumber to make composite decking, railings and other outdoor items. A third manufacturing facility in Little Rock, Arkansas, is expected to come online in 2026, something Stephanie Hicks, materials and recycling programs manager at Trex, says spurred the company’s interest in developing a presence in the area.

“Trex has been focusing some public relations efforts on, specifically, Little Rock, but Arkansas in general, just to get our name out there,” she says.

A portion of the company’s feedstock comes from postconsumer sources through its NexTrex program, which features a directory of plastic film drop-off locations and hosts the NexTrex Plastic Film Recycling Challenge. Since 2006, the initiative has challenged students across the U.S. to collect as much plastic film as possible over a five-month period, beginning on America Recycles Day (Nov. 15) and ending on Earth Day (April 22).

Schools of similar sizes compete with others in their respective regions to recycle the most plastic film. The top performing schools in each state win a Trex bench, as well as cash prizes and additional Trex products for their campuses.

For KAB, pursuing a partnership with Trex made perfect sense. Robyn Taylor, volunteer program manager at KAB, says the organization was seeking ways to expand into the recycling sector and bolster its grant program.

“We learned about the NexTrex program that was already being implemented in several Arkansas schools,” she says. “We wanted to refocus our grants to schools, specifically expanding access to sustainability education for youth.

“The NexTrex program was a natural fit for us since they were already actively providing hands-on learning through their recycling program.”

Trex and KAB officially began collaborating on the NexTrex Plastic Film Recycling Challenge during the 2022-2023 school year.

Education, incentives and accolades

The NexTrex Plastic Film Recycling Challenge is a K-12 initiative, though Hicks says most of the participation in Arkansas came from elementary schools. Last year, 11 schools across the state participated in the program, diverting approximately 3,000 pounds of plastic film from landfills.

Trex deploys a handful of educational materials to motivate and inform participating students. Each school receives three recycling bins to collect plastic film and a poster to promote the program. Students are given a magnet featuring the items accepted by the program, which include grocery bags, bread bags, bubble wrap, dry cleaning bags, newspaper sleeves and more.

Last school year, video materials outlining how the program works and how to recycle were available.

Ultimately, however, it is up to the schools to decide how best to present these materials to their students.

“It’s an additional way for teachers to teach whatever they’re working on,” Hicks says. “They could use it to teach math, they can use it to teach environmental studies, they can use it for a lot of different things.”

Participating schools, regardless of recycling status, are given Trex products. Schools participating during the 2022-2023 school year were given coat racks made by Trex, while previous prizes included birdhouses, planter boxes and certificate frames.

Schools were eligible to win additional funding through the program. As the top two performing schools, Springhill Elementary School in Alexander and Hurricane Creek Elementary School in Benton were awarded $2,500 grants from KAB for campus beautification efforts. Students from the winning schools also received a copy of Otto the Otter and the Great Arkansas Mystery by Ron Wolfe, an educational picture book that features KAB’s river-dwelling mascot who urges readers against littering.

Taylor says Arkansas students were incentivized to participate further through the promise of an award assembly presented by Otto the Otter, which would receive media coverage.

“We pretty much get statewide media coverage,” she says. “The kids are getting to interact with the news stations, they’re getting interviewed [and] they’re seeing themselves on the news at 5 o’clock.”

Taylor says student participation is integral to the NexTrex program’s hands-on nature.

“Having the students bring [plastic film] to their classroom to be sorted is instrumental in creating that learning environment and ensuring they take what they’re learning and apply it to real life experiences,” she says.

In September 2023, the partnership between Trex and KAB was recognized as the 2023 Recycling Education Program of the Year by the Arkansas Recycling Coalition (ARC).

The ARC Awards honor statewide groups and programs that have made contributions to waste reduction, recycling and sustainability education.

How does Arkansas compare?

During the 2022-2023 school year, 608 schools across the U.S. participated in the NexTrex challenge. The program collected 421,623 pounds—more than 210 tons—of plastic film, 3,000 pounds of which came from Arkansas.

Springhill Elementary School, the top performing school in Arkansas, collected 1,160 pounds of film for recycling, more than one-third of the state’s total.

Hicks says the program’s highest participation rates come from states in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, specifically those with strong recycling legislation. She notes New Jersey’s bag ban went into effect in 2022 and significantly boosted its participation in the NexTrex challenge.

Arkansas’ recycling rates also are rising. In its “Year in Review” report, KAB documented an overall recycling rate increase of 2,418 tons of material in 2023 compared with 144 tons in 2022, aided in part by the NexTrex program.

Hicks says much of Arkansas’ NexTrex involvement comes from Saline County, adding that community members have been “faithful participants” for years.

“A lot of times, the smaller the town, the more participation they get,” she says. “It’s not necessarily the big cities. It’s the smaller towns where people communicate more, or they’re in more community organizations together, where [recycling] really will take off and start to grow.”

Although the program is geared toward students, Hicks says it also serves as an educational tool for adults.

“Every time a student participates, they’re raising awareness to somebody else that didn’t have any idea about it, whether it’s a parent, a grandparent, a babysitter, whoever,” she says. “That’s a lot of why we do this. Kids will tell whatever they’re interested in.”

Additionally, starting with youth outreach helps instill a sense of recycling responsibility and agency in students. When exposed to hands-on programs like NexTrex, children can learn and conceptualize the value of recycling earlier in their lives, potentially carrying that concept with them into adulthood.

“Youth education programs are one of the most important parts of how we promote and inspire litter prevention and recycling efforts here in Arkansas,” Taylor says. “Getting kids involved at a young age ensures that they’ll be responsible environmental stewards … throughout the span of their lives.”

The author is digital editor for Recycling Today Media Group and can be reached at tkazdin@gie.net.