Students at Lafayette Middle School are participating in Lafayette's first ever "Plastic Bag Roundup". The program encourages students to collect bags they find to be recycled into a bus stop bench to be placed in front of their school.

It's estimated that 500 billion to a trillion plastic shopping bags are created each year in the U.S. alone. These bags are tricky to recycle because they can interfere with automatic sorting machines. Bags that end up as litter may take decades or more to decompose.

Katherine McCormick, assistant to city-parish President Joey Durel  came up with the idea for the project after being prompted by 705 past president Brittany Broussard. Broussard said,

We had sponsors looking to do something good in the community. So I immediately thought of 'Project Front Yard' and called Katherine.

'Project Front Yard' teamed up with the PAR Real Estate Companies and Levi Kastner of Liberty Mutual to launch the 'Plastic Bag Roundup'. PAR Broker and CEO Peggy Grace said,

This is a win-win for everyone. We're starting a conversation about recycling. We're starting a conversation about public transit. We're showing young people how the two can come together in a very tangible way.

The program will run for a month. Should it be successful it will become a model for future programs and other schools. If you'd like to help you can drop your bags at Albertson's on Johnston Street.

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