Scarlett Siegel is a rising senior at Staples High School. This summer, she is interning in the 1st Selectwoman’s Office.
Her environmental and socially conscious efforts began when she joined Staples’ Coastal Cleanup Crew. She helped found OneWestport, a service club where she is vice president of social justice and activism.
Scarlett has lived in Westport since preschool. She hopes to keep our town as beautiful as it is now, for the generations to come. She writes:
Like many others, I have spent my summer days strolling down Main Street, visiting Compo with friends, and riding my bike along Beachside Avenue.
Yet I often find myself sidestepping broken and jagged glass on my walks.
I decided to do some research into glass recycling, and learned about Westport’s Glass Recycling Program, at the transfer station on the Sherwood Island Connector.
Glass recycling container at the transfer station. (Photo courtesy of Westportcct.gov)
People bring their beverage bottles and food jars; they’ll be discarded and recycled safely.
Of course, there are some do’s and don’ts. According to Sustainable Westport:
- Do make sure all items are empty, rinsed, and clean.
- Do make sure bottle caps are on the bottles — or take them off and place them in the trash.
- Don’t shred, box, bag, or bundle items. That includes using plastic bags to collect and dump your recyclable materials.
- Don’t put paper food take-out containers in your recycling. They can’t be recycled because they are too soiled; and may be plastic-lined or compostable.
Glass can be extremely dangerous to humans and wildlife when not discarded properly.
Coastal Cleanup Crew co-founder Ryland Noorily, says, “the glass recycling program will separate glass from the other vulnerable materials — recyclable plastics and papers — and maximize our recycling potential”.
Let’s join together to keep this town a beautiful and thriving ecosystem, and
make sure we have plenty of beautiful Westport summers in the years ahead.
Trash collected by Staples’ Coastal Cleanup Crew (Photo/Ty Levine)
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Thank you Scarlett! This is why I have hope for the future because of young people like you.
The most important part of this is segregated recycling of glass at the transfer station. Home pickup is single stream, and sadly it is not a “plus” to recycle glass this way. Glass breaks and contaminates things that are of value to recycle.
The town’s web site is pretty good on this subject.
Good work.
ADW
Here’s an idea for a future column – many of us use refuse companies – I want to know if they actually go thru everything and recycle it correctly – what are their rules. We use Maloney.