HELENA — The holidays are a time of giving, but that also means a time of throwing out a lot of stuff like cardboard and wrapping paper. At the Lewis and Clark Library people are turning that trash into treasure.
Children made items like cardboard sweatshirts and armor, CD sunglasses, and as one kid described her headband, “an up and down one like fireworks exploding in the sky kind of.”
Those are just a few of the ways local kids are being stylish, yet sustainable to bring in the new year.
Waste Cost Solutions estimates that during the holiday season an extra one million tons of waste is produced each week in the United States alone.
This includes additional packaging materials such as boxes, wrapping paper, plastic bags, and styrofoam used to package gifts and decorations.
Emmon Rogers, the teen services librarian, shares what she has seen from both holiday and library recycling.
“For the most people we have seen people just attempt to recycle things and that’s awesome but the reuse part got kind of swept under the rug and I think it is a great idea to get back to that and make use of things that we would otherwise throw in the landfill," Rogers says.
While some are crafting for the ball to drop at midnight, others are preparing for Noon Year’s Eve; the library’s ball drop that happens at twelve in the afternoon for youngsters and others who do not "want" to stay up late.
Reduce, reuse, and recycle events at the library are accessible to all and has goals to improve in the new year.
Rogers says, “the idea is that we are all going to share a little bit more and do a better job at stewarding those resources in a way that means we all get to enjoy them instead of just a few people here and there.”
The Noon Year's Eve festivities begin at Lewis and Clark County Library at 11 am on December 31st.
