HUMMELS WHARF — The average American household uses approximately 900 plastic grocery bags each year. In honor of Earth Day on Wednesday, Giant Food Stores and Martin’s Food Markets are encouraging customers to return unused plastic bags to their local store to be recycled. Giant and Martin’s will then turn the recycled bags into park benches.
This year, the company will donate 100 benches to municipal parks throughout four states. Locally, benches will be donated to Montour County, where one bench will be placed in a parks and recreation area, and in Snyder County, where one bench will be located in Weller Field Park, Shamokin Dam, and another in a Monroe Township recreation area.
It takes 12,015 plastic bags to make one park bench.
“Instead of plastic bags ending up in landfills or littering green spaces, we recycle them into benches and donate them to assist with local beautification efforts,” said Tracy Pawelski, director of public and community relations. “Earth Day is a great catalyst for action and awareness. Instead of throwing out plastic shopping bags, we encourage our customers to deposit them in containers located in the vestibules of our stores and help us turn more bags into benches.”
Since 1997, 1,300 park benches have been donated to a variety of organizations including fire departments, churches, schools, parks, playgrounds and libraries.
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Karen Blackledge/The Daily Item
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Stores recycle plastic shopping bags into benches
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