For the second year in a row, FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary Mon Power is teaming with East Fairmont High School to collect plastic waste, including items like bubble wrap, bread bags and shipping envelopes, as part of the nationwide NexTrex challenge to promote sustainability within communities across the United States.
Over the next year, Mon Power employees and East Fairmont students are tasked with collecting 1,000 pounds of plastic. Mon Power employees have already begun gathering plastic waste from their offices, warehouses, service centers and regulated power plants. The collected plastic materials are sent to a NexTrex processing facility, where they are transformed into composite decking materials that provide a durable and eco-friendly alternative to traditional building materials.
Doc Garrett, environmental technician at FirstEnergy: “Participating in different challenges run by NexTrex gets our community and our employees involved with a common goal of preventing tons of recyclable and reusable plastic from going to the landfill. A lot of supplies shipped to our facilities are wrapped in the type of plastic we can collect and recycle.” Members of the public can participate in the challenge by dropping off plastic waste at the designated bins set up inside the main entrances of the Mon Power headquarters building in Fairmont and its contact center just down the road.
This endeavor comes on the heels of Mon Power completing NexTrex’s recent community challenge, where employees collected more than 500 pounds of plastic at its Harrison Power Station and office buildings over the past six months. In recognition of Mon Power’s efforts, NexTrex awarded the company with a bench made of recycled plastic. Employees will place the bench near a community garden they are planning to plant this coming spring at the Bartlett House, a homeless shelter in Morgantown.
This is just one of the many initiatives organized and implemented by FirstEnergy’s Green Teams, groups of employee volunteers committed to supporting environmental initiatives across the company’s six-state footprint. The teams also devote their time and resources to programs like tree-planting events, electronics recycling and beach cleanups.
To read the full story, visit https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fairmont-community-teams-up-to-collect-plastic-waste-and-promote-sustainability-301999414.html.
Author: PR Newswire