Recycling Success Story

Located in Lawrenceville, Georgia, Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful (GCB) has been awarded a $10,000 grant by the Bank of America Charitable Foundation. The grant will be used to produce and distribute reusable bags to the community to educate and encourage citizens to properly recycle and reduce contamination in the bin.

The bags will be made from recycled content and will be distributed at Gwinnett County events. As part of a larger initiative, the reusable bag is intended to be used to collect recyclables in the home and transfer them to curbside bins and carts.

“We’ve found that a lot of households like to collect their recyclables in plastic grocery bags,” said Schelly Marlatt, Executive Director of GCB. “It is our hope to not only replace those bags with reusable bags we’ll be providing … but we’ll also be educating Gwinnett County citizens on key steps to take to recycle properly.”

The reusable bags will also include recycling tips printed on them in several languages to communicate with the county’s diverse community.

In addition to the bags, GCB will work to educate the public by offering recycling tips and information on its website.

“Plastic grocery bags in the curbside recycling bin can cause delays during the sorting process, as well as cause damage to both recycling trucks and sorting equipment,” said Marlatt. “We recommend that our neighbors either use reusable shopping bags each time they go to the store or get into the habit of bringing their empty plastic bags back to the retail location and placing them in their dedicated bins.”