2015 Trash for Turtles

Posted On January 18, 2016

Now into the third year, “Trash for Turtles” continued to grow. I designed this year’s logo and motto: “Say no to trash. Say YES to turtles!” I was really upset by the amount of plastic pollution along the roads and rivers where I live. Unfortunately, we do not have a plastic recycling program here, so I wanted to help combat plastic pollution in my area. Too many animals are injured by plastic grocery bags, including sea turtles which can mistake them for jellyfish. So, this year, I sold reusable insulated grocery bags featuring this year’s logo and motto. They were a big hit, selling 174 in all!

We sold the bags by word of mouth, on social media, in our local newspaper, and at the 2015 GSTC Earth Day Festival.

Here is our booth where we talked to visitors about our project and sold our reusable bags.

My sister asked her class at school to draw pictures and write thank you letters, so we could include one in each bag that we sold that day.

Our local newspaper was also kind enough to let us place an ad about project!

Of course, the foundation of the “Trash for Turtles” project has always been recycling. In all, I and my family conducted six roadway and river clean ups this year. In November, we partnered with the Satilla Riverkeeper to collect trash along the river and collect aluminum cans.

We even met Olivia and Carter with One More Generation (OMG) at the river cleanup. They were really inspiring!

All together, we collected and recycled 907 lbs or approximately 29,000 cans!

Because of all the support we received from our school, we wanted to do something to give back. So, in May 2015, we arranged for the Georgia Sea Turtle Center (GSTC) to come to our school. The GSTC educators performed puppet shows for the younger grades, set up demonstration stations for the middle grades, and conducted a remote classroom session for fifth grade students. Here are some pictures from this incredible day!