Moorhead’s Horizon West Middle School competes in plastic bag challenge

The school teamed up with the local task force to reduce, reuse and recycle.

MOORHEAD, Minn. – Fifth graders at Horizon West Middle School are taking part in this year’s plastic bag challenge.

“The program provides every student with a reusable grocery tote, and so, those students take that home, and they encourage their families to use that. And then, there’s a contest running and so the more that they use the reusable totes, the more points they get for their house,” says Carla Smith, the Principal at Horizon West Middle School.

The Task Force will be monitoring the use of the reusable bag.

“You just go online, you click on whatever team that your child or student or family member is in. You take a picture of the bag in use and then the receipt is posted on there. Click submit and then it will ask you how many items were in your bag or on your receipt. That way we can calculate how many plastic bags were saved by the amount of items that were purchased,” says Darla Lewandowski, member of the Clay County Plastic Bag Task Force.

The school is no stranger to challenges.

“The students we have here are wonderful. They’re very very mentally minded. And they also care a lot about the community and so, they want to get involved. I think sometimes we think kids are kids what do they care. But they really do care,” says Smith.

Over the span of three months, they were able to collect 53,500 bags as part of last years Plastic Bag challenge.

“This year, I kind of wanted to try a new outlook. Instead of encouraging the use of plastic bags almost, bring it back and really focus on not using it. To break the habit of single use plastics,” says Lewandowski.

They want to teach kids that you’re never too young to make a difference.

“One little thing. Remembering to bring reusable bags to the store can truly make an impact. They can make an impact in their community,” Smith adds.