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Ecomaine awards grants to Maine schools for landfill diversion programs

Following America Recycles Day on Nov. 15, ecomaine announced more than $18,500 in funding to 10 recipients of its 2020-21 School Recycling Grants, to help schools implement more efficient recycling programs or add composting.

The winners were:

• Appletree School, Cape Elizabeth: Chemical-free, compostable paper towels made from recycled content to replace reusable towels during the pandemic.
• Boys & Girls Club of Southern Maine, Portland Clubhouse: To establish a composting program in the Portland Clubhouse
Children’s Nursery School.
• Gorham Cooperative Preschool: One compost tumbler.
• Gray-New Gloucester High School: Composting materials, curriculum development and community support.
• King Middle School, Portland: Trash cleanup materials.
• St. Brigid’s School, Portland: A Palgram Greenhouse.
• Waldo County Technical Center, Liberty: Recycling collection and transportation.
• Westbrook High School: Two reusable water bottle filling stations.
• Kent’s Hill School, Readfield: To establish a campus-wide recycling bin program with consistent bins and labeling.

“This year is obviously proving to be a tough one for all of us — especially schools and students,” said Caleb Hemphill, chairperson of ecomaine’s Outreach & Recycling Committee. “It is ecomaine’s hope that this funding can help kickstart or maintain some of the important programming around recycling, compost and waste reduction that we’ve seen in our schools.

Recipients were chosen by ecomaine’s Outreach and Recycling Committee based on the following criteria:

1) Project outline and school commitment.
2) Ease of project replication.
3) Likelihood of success and program sustainability.
4) How compelling and worthy the funding is overall.