Students have opportunity to express themselves

Children can create an Earth Day message to share with the community through the Earth Day Groceries Project. The Clark County Waste Management District and Keep Clark County Beautiful are working with Kroger stores to provide paper grocery bags to schools that want to participate in the project.

Teachers or schools can request bags for their classrooms. Each student will get a paper shopping bag that he or she can decorate with an environmentally themed message. The decorated bags should be delivered to Kroger stores, which will give them to shoppers during the week of Earth Day, April 15-22.

Anyone wanting to participate should request bags by Feb. 17. Requests can be made by calling Linda Mitchell at 521-2023 or emailing lmitchell@clarkcountyohio.gov.

The plain grocery bags will be delivered to schools the week of March 12-16. Schools will be responsible for getting the decorated bags to a nearby Kroger store in time to be distributed starting April 15.

Hundreds of schools nationwide have participated in this project over the years. In 2011 20 schools in Clark County participated and 3,800 bags were distributed. Students can be as creative as they want in sharing their thoughts on how to respect the Earth. Take a look at the web site www.earthdaybags.org for more information and for ideas on how to decorate the bags.

This activity is also open to organizations other than schools. Cub Scout packs, environmental groups, after-school programs, and others have joined in. All are welcome!

Calendar of Events

Saturday, February 4, 9 a.m. to noon -- Clark County Recycling Center open for Specialty Recycling.

Friday, February 17 -- Deadline for teachers to request grocery bags for the Earth Day Grocery Bags Project. Call Linda Mitchell at 521-2023 to submit a request.

Monday, February 20 -- Clark County Recycling Center closed for Presidents Day holiday.

March 1-May 31 -- Volunteers can join in the Great American Cleanup. The Clark County Waste Management District provides trash bags, gloves, and a token prize for each volunteer. Call 521-2025 to sign up or for information.

Saturday, April 21, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday, April 22, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. -- Hollandia Bulb Festival at the garden by Buck Creek between Water Street and Sherman Avenue. Look for the Keep Clark County Beautiful booth.

Sunday, April 22 -- Earth Day.

Appliance Recycling Program

First Energy Ohio has started an appliance recycling program. The company is offering to pay $50 for old, inefficient refrigerators and freezers (still in working order). The utility will have the appliance picked up and taken to a recycling facility.

This program will continue until funding is exhausted. This offer is only for residential customers of Ohio Edison, Toledo Edison, and the Illuminating Company.

For more information, go to: www.energysaveOHIO.com.

Recycling Center now takes technotrash

The Clark County Recycling Center now offers a box for recycling of small electronic items, such as CDs, printer cartridges, MP3 players, hard drives, flash drive, and VHS and audio tapes. There's no charge for placing items in the box located at our 1602 W. Main St. facility.

The Technotrash box is a product of Green Disk, a company that provides secured, audited disposal of electronic media and recycles the resulting material to make office supplies. For a complete list of all items accepted, go to http://www.greendisk.com/Pop-ups/Items-to-dispose-of.html.

Visit KCCB on Facebook

Keep Clark County Beautiful has a page on Facebook. The page has tips on ways to reduce your waste and photo galleries of KCCB's projects, such as the Graffiti Removal Unit and the Keep Clark County Beautiful show for schools. Become a fan and check us out!