Styrofoam Collection at Kendal at Hanover

We at Kendal began participating last year in the Styrofoam collection events conducted by Sustainable Lebanon and Lebanon Rotary, and by Sustainable Hanover. We had alerted both residents and staff, and began collecting our Styrofoam in a container in one of the trash rooms. Deposits were collected in plastic bags and stored in an outbuilding, with support from our Facilities Department.

That worked out well for those first three foam collection events, but we soon discovered that the word was out, and deposits kept coming. We needed to have larger containers and another trash room site for collection. Thanks to a very committed member of our Facilities Department, a growing amount of packing material from that department was added to the residents waste, and even larger bags were needed to contain the ever-growing supply.

We had become a victim of our own success! We were running out of space, so in May we checked with Yolanda Baumgartner as to when the next event would be in either Hanover or Lebanon. Unfortunately there were no regular collections scheduled soon enough to relieve our space problem. So Yolanda sent me to Cindy Heath, the great problem solver, with the final result being that she arranged with Cornish to rent a U Haul to combine our loads for a trip to Gilford for processing in mid June. What fun to see all that Styrofoam loaded into the truck and know that it was headed toward a second life.

Now we just need to find storage until October!