LYNN — Only a few months ago, the Massachusetts Beverage Association awarded the House Factory Foundation and Plastic Recycled $12,500 in grant funding to bring recycling professionals into Lynn classrooms and educate students on responsible waste disposal. On Tuesday, state and city officials visited Hood Elementary School to see how the new recycling program played out.
“It’s just a really great opportunity because recycling starts with education,” Massachusetts Beverage Association Executive Director Steve Boksanski said. “It’s a great thing that we’re teaching kids at a young age these lessons they can use for the rest of their lives.”
Founder and CEO of Plastic Recycled and House Factory Foundation Nathan Gray — a Lynn native who attended Hood as a child — has led a program for the school’s fourth and fifth-grade students to teach them which materials can and can not be recycled.
The program also gives the children hands-on experience making “eco-bricks,” or plastic water bottles filled with recyclable materials, which can then be repurposed into a number of different objects, such as park benches, tiny houses, or works of art.
Gray said the program has already collected roughly 7,000 eco-bricks through its recycling program.
“It’s going to help bring this programming to the students in Lynn,” Gray said. “We’ve already reached out to about 1,000 students in Lynn, and we’re hoping to reach thousands more.”
In the Hood Elementary School gymnasium, roughly 20 participating students sat down with Rep. Daniel Cahill, Sen. Brendan Crighton, and Mayor Jared Nicholson. Over hot chocolate and doughnuts, they shared what they learned from Gray’s program.
“I liked the program a lot,” Hood Elementary School fifth-grader Nathan Ricottelli said. “I learned a lot about recycling … what things can be recycled, and what things can’t.”
