Styrofoam Recycling Coming to Westborough

Information courtesy of the Westborough Girl Scouts.

Westborough Girl Scouts Kaleigh Wright and Bhargavi Ram organized the first Styrofoam recycling event in Westborough as part of their project to earn the Girl Scout Silver Award. Reduce, Reuse, ReFoamIt! will take place on Saturday, March 24 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., rain or shine, at the Tufts Machine Lot on East Main Street. All are welcome to participate.

"When we started this Silver Award project we didn't realize all the support we would get," said Wright. "We wanted to do something to help the environment. After Bhargavi and I helped my aunt at her Northborough ReFoamIt event, we knew that we could do this in Westborough ."

Wright and Ram are working with Dave and Barbara Sherman of ReFoamIt, a Styrofoam recycling company out of Framingham.

They have also enlisted the support of the , who is considering adding the girls' second Styrofoam recycling event to its Hazardous Waste Day in October of this year. That would be for Westborough residents only, whereas the event on March 24 is open to residents of surrounding towns as well.

"We're so excited about our March 24 event and hope we can fill the truck," said Ram. Typically, at a first-time event, a town will collect about 300 pounds of Styrofoam. "It feels so good to reduce the amount of Styrofoam going into landfills," said Ram. "ReFoamIt processes it into compressed blocks, then small pellets that get recycled into picture frames, eyeglass frames, car bumpers. It's really amazing!"

The girls will collect PS 6 Styrofoam, which includes:

• Packing peanuts
• Dunkin Donuts cups
• Take-out containers
• Packing blocks
• Egg cartons
• Produce and meat trays
• Plastic utensils (separate)
• White insulation sheets

While they will earn their Silver Award this spring, their goal is for the town to hold two Reduce, Reuse, ReFoamIt! events each year for the next five years. They are about halfway toward their goal of raising $2,000 to make that happen, which includes a $300 grant from Tufts Cummings School Service Fund.

You can follow the progress of the girls' project on Facebook at R3: Reduce, Reuse, ReFoamIt https://www.facebook.com/pages/R3-Reduce-Reuse-ReFoamIt/163016673797730. For more information, contact Nancy Wright at nancy@wrightbuzz.com.