Increase in recycling leads to larger scholarships for Clark County high school students

Libby Cunningham, The Evening News and the Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind.
·2 min read

Nov. 30—CLARK COUNTY — More Clark County residents are recycling metal and it's paying off for local students.

The Clark County Recycling District is nearly tripling its scholarship award this year and offering a cumulative $11,000 to five high-schoolers as part of the Eco-Friendly Scholarship program.

"We have great residents and we have received a lot of everyday scrap metal items, like water heaters, our aluminum cans, washers, dryers, computer hard drives, bicycles," said CCRD Executive Director Debby McGrath. "And then we've also received a lot of items that we haven't seen a lot of lately until this last year."

The scholarships are funded by scrap metal and aluminum recycling at the CCRD in Charlestown.

"Brake drums, fire pits, metal sheds, portions even of car frames, metal roofs, motorized wheelchairs, riding lawn mowers and all of those items are very heavy, so that helps drive up the amount of funds we've received for the scrap metal," McGrath said.

The scholarships are fully funded by Clark County residents dropping off items and McGrath said that spirit of giving fuels the recycling.

"It's an easy thing to do, to put your aluminum cans maybe in a different spot than you normally would," McGrath said. "We have a separate designated area for that and we mark that collection as all of the funds go to the scholarship funds."

Five high school seniors who live in Clark County will earn the scholarships. First place is a $5,000 award, second place is a $3,000 award and then three $1,000 scholarships will also be awarded.

To apply students must create a 35-second video about sustainability and submit it to the CCRD by Feb. 23. Applicants have to have a GPA of 2.5 or higher by December to qualify.

"It's nice to get a younger viewpoint on recycling," McGrath said. "You tend to look at things differently at various ages."

Students can look under the video tab on the CCRD's Facebook page to get an idea of what last year's winning videos look like. For the full application students can visit https://www.recycleclarkcounty.org/.

"Just getting people to put their recycling in a container is very, very important," McGrath said. "Sometimes people don't understand everything they can recycle; these videos help us with that."