The city of Merriam is one of the latest local beneficiaries in a program offered by Trex Co. Inc., a billion-dollar company, in which plastic bags are collected and weighed before being recycled as free park benches.
The Merriam benches joined others created through this program found throughout the area. Recycled benches have been installed in Belton, Lenexa, Mission, Overland Park, Shawnee, and both Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas.
“The recycling is important but getting the bench is cool,” said David Hentges, secretary and founder of the Kansas City Downtown Lions Club. The club has collected enough plastic bags in the past three years to get six benches.
Trex started its recycling effort in 2006 in its hometown of Winchester, Virginia, to help educate students on the importance of recycling and how to recycle plastic bags and film. Trex is a publicly traded company that makes composite decking, railing and outdoor living products.
The recycling program began simply. Bins were set up at local schools. The plastic was picked up by Trex employees and eventually turned into composite decking. The effort has since evolved into a national self-service program called NexTrex. Schools, community organizations or municipalities can now take collected materials to be weighed at designated recyclers.
There is a robust list of qualified items: shopping bags; bread bags; resealable food storage bags; produce bags; the plastic wrapping around bottled water, toilet paper and paper towels; and even the air pillows used in shipping.
Trex estimates that in the past 30 years it has upcycled more than 5 billion pounds of polyethylene plastic film, the formal name for the plastic. In 2022, Trex recycled 337 million pounds of polyethylene plastic film in the making of its composite decking products.
All this collecting and recycling is being done at a time of great debate over plastic bags. The Lawrence City Commission has adopted an ordinance banning use by most businesses of single-use plastic bags beginning March 1. “The need and desire to recycle plastic bags and film does not go away just because a bag ban is put in place,” Hicks of Trex said. “Additionally, all of the other packaging and flexible plastic materials that Trex recycles through its store drop-off is still being produced and needs a recycling home.”
Interested in making bags into a bench? Learn more about the NexTrex program.
Read the full article by Flatland contributor Debra Skodack is a Kansas City-area freelance writer HERE.
