In an effort to educate students, teachers and parents about the importance of plastic bag recycling and keeping plastics out of our environment and landfills, Trex Company is sponsoring a competition for schools to collect a variety of plastic bags and film.

The competition begins on America Recycles Day, November 15, 2012 and runs through Earth Day, April 22, 2013. Trex provides recycling bins and marketing materials at no cost to each participating school, and each student will receive a magnet that shows examples of plastics accepted in the program. Each school must have an adult sponsor to tally up the plastics each month and report to a Trex representative. It is recommended to use a 30-gallon trash bag inside the recycling bin, which holds an estimated 1,000 grocery bags.  After recording the monthly total, the sponsor takes the full bags to the nearest participating retail store.

Participating National Grocery Chains in Northern Cook County:

Albertsons (Jewel-Osco), Farm Fresh, Meijer, Piggly Wiggly, Safeway (Dominick's), Schnucks, Target, Winn-Dixie, Whole Foods and Walmart.

Acceptable Plastics:

• Polyethylene stretch and shrink wrap
• Grocery Bags
• Newspaper sleeves
• Paper towel / toilet paper over wrap
• Cleaning and dry produce bags
• Dry cleaning bags
• Case Wrap (used to wrap soda bottles, canned goods, water bottles, etc.)
• Zip lock bags (dry and clean)
• Bread bags (dry and clean)
• Salt bags (shaken)
• Ice bags (no moisture or hard / metal clips)
• Garment bags
• Bubble Wrap
• Polyethylene foam (used in wrapping furniture)
• Other Polyethylene packaging (Recycle Code 2 and 4)
• Cereal bags

Each participating school will receive a bird house made from Trex lumber and the first place winner in the county or region will receive a bench made of Trex lumber.

To register or for more informaiton, please contact Stephanie Hicks at shicks@trex.com or (540) 542-6494.

About Trex Company

Trex Company, the country's largest manufacturer of wood-alternative decking, railing products and fencing products, marketed under the brand name Trex®, is headquartered in Winchester, Virginia, with manufacturing facilities in Fernley, Nevada and Winchester, Virginia.  Trex® turns millions of pounds of recycled and reclaimed plastic and waste wood each year into Trex products. Most of these raw materials come from recovered plastic grocery bags, plastic film, and waste wood fiber. Trex Company purchases approximately 300 million pounds of used polyethylene and an equal amount of hardwood sawdust each year, materials that would normally end up in a landfill. The company recycles over 1.3 billion grocery retail bags annually.

Trex outdoor living products are true value-added features for residential and commercial installations. They offer unmatched good looks and longevity, and will never rot, crack or splinter. Trex products are extremely weather-resistant and never need painting or staining for protection. And, Trex decking is the only composite lumber to be code-listed by the nation's three major building code agencies. Trex products are stocked in more than 5,500 retail locations across the United States and Canada.