Lowndes Co. Schools and industries work together to teach students about recycling
LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Good habits are more easily learned at an earlier age.
A partnership between Lowndes County’s newest industry and Lowndes County schools is helping elementary students learn a habit that can help clean up their neighborhood and improve the overall environment.
Representatives with Aluminum Dynamics have been working with third graders across the district to teach them the importance of recycling.
Lowndes County schools have joined schools from 14 states in the Million Can Recycle Contest.
The contest has encouraged kids to collect and recycle their aluminum cans and explained to them the environmental impact that this simple act can have.
There are also economic incentives. Recycled aluminum provides material to produce new aluminum products, and for the schools, they get to keep the money raised from cashing in on those cans.
“If you learn from this early age, it can be a fundamental building block that these young kids have a chance to really shape the way that their next 40-50 years go, and how the world can see it and benefit from it,” Mike Ledbetter from Aluminum Dynamics.
“I think now that they see the bigger picture, I think they’re going to take it more seriously, and I think they’ll even push their parents to say ‘Hey, Mom, don’t throw that can in the trash can, put it here, so I can take it to school and recycle it’,” said West Lowndes Assistant Principal Dr. Kennetra Smith.
While they hope the habit of recycling lasts a lifetime, the contest ends April 30, 2026.
