This spring about 60 Helfrich Park sixth-graders split into teams to solve a problem posed by Berry Global — to reduce waste created by throwing away plastic bottle caps.
Berry Global is an Evansville-based plastics manufacturer that designs and creates a lot of plastic products, while keeping an eye on a sustainable future. This is their sixth STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Partnership Project with the school.
Helfrich Park sixth-grade science teacher Megan Wright says there were a variety of solutions these student teams created.
“These students created many different versions, they were some Plinko-styled board games, there was a hot wheel styled one, one they were feeding an animal to feed it bottlecaps. So, many different creations," she said.
The school voted on their favorite solution — "CapEaters" — a device with an image of their principal’s face witha mouth that "eats" bottle caps. It will be prototyped by Berry Global to be used at the school, with some modifications for practicality.
Wright says the idea of wasting plastic recycling has already become part of student culture.
" … water bottles are a really big thing. And we've increased the water intake because of COVID. So now most students carry their own water bottle, and they're seeing the need for that," she said. "So at the age of 11, and 12, they're finding ways to start recycling. And we're encouraging that at a young age. And hopefully it just keeps growing as they get older.”
Wright says they also learned about focus-grouping their ideas and marketing their products. They made videos to pitch the idea to their school and Berry Global.
Eva Schmitz, communications director for Berry Global said the teams chose to focus on collecting small components such as bottle caps for recycling, because there is a closed-loop collection program locally at Green Tree Plastics.
