Pelham Eliminates Plastics Cleans up the Community
December 11, 2019
Pelham Eliminates Plastics (PEP), an all-student run organization with the goal of abolishing plastic usage locally, and the Environmental Coalition of the Pelham’s (EcoPel), an organization working to create a more sustainable Pelham, partnered for a town cleanup on November 2. The PEP group, shocked by the amount of plastic candy wrappers they saw on the streets of Pelham last Halloween, asked EcoPel to join in on their annual cleanup. The cleanup crew of students, scout troops, parents, and Pelham residents met at the Connecticut-bound side of the train station at 11 a.m.
The group split up around Pelham to collect the most amount of trash as possible. Taking place just two days after Halloween, an immense amount of candy wrappers were found. Lasting just two hours, everyone brought the trash they found back to the station, totaling about 25 garbage bags. The trash was disposed of by the Town of Pelham.
“I learned how valuable it can be to put the environment before yourself. The work was really rewarding. Everyone can take small actions to reduce their impact on the environment, like cutting down single use plastics or reducing their carbon footprint by not driving as much,” junior Brett Bober said.
Students receive community service hours for participating and realized that, by simply walking around in your neighborhood, you may find a large quantity of trash.
“I hope that people understand how much impact we can have on the preservation of our community if we all put effort into eliminating some of the single use products we use that may accidentally end up littering our streets or contribute to the growing problem of too much garbage,” Lindsay Pretfakes, a Pelham resident and member of EcoPel, said.