Southeast High School in Bradenton is helping the environment and beautifying their campus by collecting discarded bottle caps.
The project started with an idea from now-retired educator Yvonne Eisenberg. In 2013, Eisenberg began encouraging her students to collect caps from juice, detergent, milk, water, dish soap and other approved containers.
Her colleagues in the school's art, culinary, drama and science departments, as well as nearby businesses like Callaghan Tire, soon joined the effort.
(L to R): Georgette Trott; Sue Cutchineal; Fred Johnson; Yvonne Eisenberg, Retired Educator; Jane Toole; Marie Hyppolite; Ernie LeValley; and Jason Schiessl (Manatee County School District)
Students sorted the caps weekly.
“My students were amazing," said Eisenberg. "They knew which bottle caps were good and which were bad. They were learning math skills and how to save the environment at the same time.”
It took three years to finish, but the school community finally collected 1,200 pounds of caps, which is what they needed to make a new bench for their campus.
That new bench, made entirely from the collected caps by Recycled Plastic Factory in Englewood, Florida, now sits in the school's ESE Department hallway.
“It’s a lot of bottle caps," said art teacher Barbara Tapley-Kenney. "You don’t realize when you melt this little thing down how little space it takes it up. If you were to pick up this bench, I don’t know if I can pick it up. It’s very heavy. It’s very sturdy and solid. It is going to last a lifetime."
Recycled Plastic Factory, which makes eco-friendly furniture, made the bench for the school at no charge.
Now, the school wants to add another bench, only this time in their other school color: orange. They also want to collect the caps needed to make the bench in a shorter amount of time.
"It was well worth the effort doing it because now we have a really nice bench," said Tapley-Kenney. "And now we're going to do a second one."