News release from the Southeastern Indiana Recycling District

(Undated) - The Southeastern Indiana Recycling District announces that the first of two recycling rebate checks were distributed to district schools at the end of December.

Through a program announced last August, SEIRD reported that they would issue recycling rebates to participating schools that had their recyclables picked up by the organization. The company services seven counties including: Franklin, Jefferson, Jennings, Ohio, Ripley, Scott, and Switzerland.

SEIRD’s processing team tracked all recycled materials collected at each individual school, and granted the market value of these products back to each institute. In over three months, 46 participating schools collected over 185,000 pounds of paper, cardboard, plastic, and steel cans—all of which will be recycled into post-consumer products. The schools received checks with the combined total of around $6000.

According to SEIRD’s executive director Aaron Bell, as the market increases the schools will benefit by earning higher checks.

“For several months now, the market for many recyclables has been about 40-50% less than they were just over a year ago. The good news is that the markets will improve at some point and schools will reap the benefits at that time,” said Bell.

SEIRD earmarked the rebates for environmentally-related school projects such as recycling clubs and activities, tree planting and landscape needs, wildlife enhancement projects, or transportation costs to environmentally educational locations.

Steve Plasse, a teacher at Austin High School in Scott County, is considering taking his recycling rebate check and adding money raised from another school project to create an eco-friendly contest. Plasse hopes to work with science teachers to organize a student competition to come up with the most cost-effective way for the school to lower energy spending and cut their carbon footprint. If approved by school officials, the winning project will receive $500 to implement it.

The second recycling rebate checks will be issued around the end of the 2013 school year.

For more information on SEIRD’s Recycling and Reuse Centers, education opportunities, business hours, and lists of recyclable items log on to their website at http://seird.org, telephone 812-574-4080, or e-mail Kendal Miller, public outreach coordinator, at kendal@seird.org. SEIRD is on Twitter and at Southeastern Indiana Recycling District on Facebook.