The City of York is trying to eliminate all plastic waste by teaming up with a local company, and officials are coming up with more ways to get the community involved. York Mayor Michael Helfrich says this is a goal decades in the making, and with this partnership, he says this is not just protecting the environment, it is making the city better too. “The City of York’s goal is to be America’s first plastic waste-free city,” Helfrich announced
For him, the environment has always been a priority. “I was the guy coming out in the muddy waders and hauling all this stuff out of the creek,” he said. However, Helfrich noticed a persistent problem: most of the waste was plastic, and it was plastic that could not be recycled. “Plastic that’s going to landfill, that’s going to be incinerated or worse yet is leaking into the oceans and the rivers,” said Ross Gibby, COO of the Center for Regenerative Design and Collaboration (CRDC).
CRDC is the company that created The Bag That Builds program in 2022. “All plastic, one bag, zero waste. You can put any type of plastic in the bag,” Gibby said. CRDC takes that plastic and turns it into a sand-like material. “We’re getting car bumpers, we’re getting coolers, plastic lawn chairs, kiddy pools, you name it,” Gibby described.