And the Winners Are ...

The totals are in, and it was another successful year for the sixth-annual Keep Bartow Beautiful School Recycling Contest, with seven school winners named in two categories. 

“This year had a lot of firsts in it, with this school year being the first to have all entered,” said Sheri Henshaw, the coordinator for Keep Bartow Beautiful, a local affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, which promotes community environmental initiatives like school recycling and waste reduction. “It took us 10 years of dogged determination, careful budgeting, grant monies and creative rehabbing of old Dumpsters to get all the necessary infrastructure in place to make the program work properly for all these schools, including having their own dedicated recycling Dumpster for each campus location.”  

Henshaw said the Bartow County and school systems and the county's are involved in one of the largest, ongoing volunteer efforts in Bartow County. The annual seven-month effort coordinated at each school by students and teachers involves hundreds of volunteers and thousands of participants.

“In another first, this is also the first year we have offered a separate middle/high school prize, thanks to a national award we received last year from Nestle Pure Life Water for $1,000. Keep Bartow Beautiful won that award for recycling the most plastic bottles nationwide during the three months (March, April, May) of Great American Cleanup 2010. Around a dozen national prizes were given out, based on population, and we were fortunate enough to win," she said. "I was happy to turn that money back into the schools, since they have done such an amazing job with their voluntary recycling programs at each school. 

"It’s because of the hard work of the teachers, students, staff and parents that Bartow County has become nationally known for their voluntary community recycling efforts, especially school recycling.”

This year is also the first time that there has been a virtual tie (a difference of less than 1 percent), meaning there will be four winners instead of three. Each will receive a check for the school from Keep Bartow Beautiful and several cases of Pure Life Water. First place receives $500, second receives $300, and each third-place winner receives $200.

The three elementary school winners will each receive a free schoolwide program from Wildlife Wonders of Cleveland. This program, sponsored annually by Anheuser-Busch in Cartersville and Keep Bartow Beautiful, brings wildlife into the schools for students to view close up. The program focuses on habitat protections for endangered wildlife in the United States and around the world and how student recycling helps in those efforts.  

All winners were determined by total pounds collected through March 31, divided by number of students based on October’s student count. Here are the winners:

Middle/High School Division 

• First Place—Cass Middle School, 33,600 pounds total, or 32.21 pounds per student with 1,043 students.
• Second Place—Cartersville High School, with 22,840 pounds total, or 20.71 pounds per student, with 1,103 students.
• Third place—Adairsville Middle School with 14,660 pounds total, or 19.57 pounds per student with 749 students; and South Central Middle, with 12,420 pounds total, or 19.05 pounds per student, with 652 students.

Elementary School Division 

• First place—Mission Road, with 35,460 pounds total, or 67.93 pounds per student with 522 students.
• Second place—Euharlee Elementary, with 48,460 pounds, or 66.02 pounds per student with 734 students.
• Third place—Adairsville Elementary, with 35,490 pounds total, or 55.89 pounds per student with 635 students.

The total for all schools this year was 401,240 pounds, or more than 200 tons. Here are the results from all the schools:

• Adairsville Elementary—35,490 pounds, 635 students, 55.89 lbs./student.
• Adairsville High—12,450 pounds, 949 students, 13.12 lbs./student.
• Adairsville Middle—14,660 pounds, 749 students, 19.57 lbs./student.
• Allatoona Elementary—17,400 pounds, 490 students, 35,5 lbs./student.
• Cartersville Elementary—9,680 pounds, 982 students, 9.86 lbs./student.
• Cartersville High—22,840 pounds, 1,103 students, 20.71 lbs./student.
• Cartersville Middle—12,220 pounds, 899 students, 13.59 lbs./student.
• Cartersville Primary—13,960 pounds, 1,008 students, 13.85 lbs./student.
• Cass High—23,380 pounds, 1,449 students, 16.14 lbs./student.
• Cass Middle—33,600 pounds, 1,043 students, 32.21 lbs./student.
• Clear Creek Elementary—4,540 pounds, 530 students, 8.56 lbs./student.
• Cloverleaf Elementary—15,700 pounds, 607 students, 25.86 lbs./student.
• Emerson Elementary—8,120 pounds, 373 students, 21.77 lbs./student.
• Euharlee Elementary—48,460 pounds, 734 students, 66.02 lbs./student.
• Hamilton Crossing Elementary—11,940 pounds, 628 students, 19.01 lbs./student.
• Kingston Elementary—4,860 pounds, 503 students, 9.66 lbs./student.
• Mission Road Elementary—35,460 pounds, 522 students, 67.93 lbs./student.
• Pine Log Elementary—16,600 pounds, 427 students, 38.88 lbs./student.
• South Central Middle—12,420 pounds, 652 students, 19.05 lbs./student.
• Taylorsville Elementary—4,100 pounds, 457 students, 8.97 lbs./student.
• White Elementary—15,080 pounds, 582 students, 25.91 lbs./student.
• Woodland High—12,940 pounds, 1716 students, 7.54 lbs./student.
• Woodland Middle—15,280 pounds, 927 students, 16.54 lbs./student.