Emma Peregrine from G.S. Troop #1094 sorts through plastic bottle caps. A Hancock County girl scout troop from New Palestine is making two park benches out of bottle caps for their Bronze Award, something they’re earning as a troop. It’s taken them a long time to collect thousands of caps because of COVID, but they hope the benches will be created this spring.
Tom Russo| Daily Reporter
NEW PALESTINE — Table after table in the New Palestine Intermediate School cafeteria was full of plastic sacks filled with hundreds of bottle caps.
About 13 area girls, members of Girl Scout Troop 1094, were going through the sacks, checking each cap to make sure it was good enough to be used for a major recycling project.
The troop has spent the past couple of years collecting the caps to have them turned into park benches, a community work project designed to help the troop earn its Bronze Award. The award is the first of three awards Girl Scouts can earn as they make their way through the adventure program with a Silver Award coming next at the cadet level and then finally a Gold Award at the senior level.
“I thought this idea to do this was pretty cool,” troop member Betsy Strong said.
Troop leader, Rachel Strong, Betsy’s mother said the girls kind of backed into doing the project a few years ago after the Environmental Club at New Palestine Elementary School had started collecting caps, but then had to abandon the project due to the pandemic.
“My garage is full of sacks of caps,” Rachel Strong said. “At this point, we don’t need anymore caps. We just need to sort through them and make sure they’re clean and don’t have any type of paper or metal on them.”
Troop 1094 members agreed unanimously to step in and take over the project. They started collecting as many caps as they could to make the park benches. The Troop needed to collect a total of 400 pounds of caps, 200 pounds for each of the benches that will be made by a recycling company, Green Tree Plastics in Evansville.
The company has a program called ABC Promise Partnership where they work with youth groups to teach them about recycling. The program is cap and lid specific designed by school children for school children and is a tool to help youngsters learn about caring for the earth and green living.
Troop member Elizabeth Matthews said when they learned of a chance to do the project, everyone was on board because it sounded like a fun idea and a way to learn something.
“It didn’t sound too crazy because I had heard of projects like this before,” Elizabeth said. “I just wondered how it was going to work and how long was it all going to take.”
Troop mate Aubree Amback said it’s been fun collecting the caps and letting people know what they planned to do with them.
“When I first told my mom about it, she was like, ‘you’re going to do what?’” Aubree said.
The girls have no idea how many caps they’ve collected over the past year, but said the hardest part is checking out each one making sure it’s worthy to be used. Most of the usable caps have a recycling symbol on them and must be cleaned before used.
The reward for all the work the girls said is knowing they’re making something out of a product that would normally be tossed away, something that will be used and enjoyed by others for years to come.
For Betsy, whose been in the Troop since she was in kindergarten, said it will be special to make a product she can someday look back on with pride.
“That’s going to be neat to go, ‘Hey, I made that, when I get older,’” Betsy said.
Rachel Strong noted she too was a Girl Scout when she was younger and has noticed how scouting has added a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) element to some of the opportunities they present the girls, and she thinks that’s a good thing.
“They’re learning about a lot of different things with this project,” Rachel Strong said.
In addition to collection, sorting and cleaning the caps, the girls also learned about financing the project, needing $250 to make each bench.
After a recent visit with officials at Town Hall where they told the New Palestine Town Council during a meeting about their project, some audience members liked the idea so much they donated money to help turn the caps into benches. That coupled with money from cookie sales will help pay for the caps to be transformed into sturdy seats that will stand the test of time.
One of the benches is expected to be placed along the sidewalk where the train tracks run in New Palestine while the site for the other bench as yet to be determined.
The Troop members hope to have the benches ready for placement sometime this spring and said it’s been fun to learn about protecting the environment and using a product that might normally end up in the trash, turning it into something good.
“I can’t wait to see the benches,” Betsy said. “I’m going to sit in it and say, ‘I made this,’ and everyone will be happy.”
