FORT STEWART, Ga. - Following the introduction of the "Caught Doing Something Good" recycling campaign, two organizations from Fort Stewart created a partnership to make recycling creative and fun. The Directorate of Public Work's Environmental Division and the Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Rocky's Zone turned two heads into one as they planned a recycling event at the Soldier's recreation center Rocky's Zone, Aug. 16.
"We partnered with (DPW's) Environmental Recycling Program," said Marline Parker, Rocky's Zone facility manager. "We have decided that as much as we give out brochures and as much as we take Soldiers and Family Members through the Recycling Program, it would be neat to actually do some fun events. So, we're taking what we offer them on a daily basis, free of charge, and we're adding recyclables instead of the equipment to make it like a more, hands-on learning and awareness of the recycling program."
Rocky's Zone offers daily activities of games like Texas Hold'em, basketball's three-point shoot out, nine-ball tourney, ping pong and air hockey. During the recycling event, these same games were played, except with recyclables.
How can you play these games with recyclables, you ask? Parker explains that Texas Hold'em's poker chips are instead played with beer caps, the three-point shoot out is played with empty gallon milk jugs, nine-ball tourney is played with Gatorade bottle caps, the holders for air hockey was played with empty Gatorade bottles, and the holders for ping pong is played with empty half gallon milk jugs.
"It's very important that we recycle," she said. "We realize that, here in our nation, we have many things we never really had to worry about in our past, but now our environmental health is at risk. Recycling is a great way to keep cost down; it's a great way to help our environmental health to be even healthier."
The DPW's Environmental Division specialist Yvonne Smith was available during the recycling event. She and Parker game-planned the recyclables used at the event. Dog Face Soldiers present during the games participated in the activities and felt that it was different and fun.
"It was cool. It was fun. It was different," said Pfc. Jack Williams, 2-7 Infantry, 1st HBCT. "I never played basketball with recyclables before, but I tried it."
Soldiers like Pvt. Anthony Moore, 2-7 Infantry, 1st HBCT, said that he heard about Rocky's recycling event from a friend who went to Monday's event.
"[The event] wasn't a surprise to me," he said. "I didn't expect the games to be that fun; it was a fun experience. I recycle when I can, and this event definitely will make me look more into recycling."
Private Moore said that he enjoyed playing air hockey and basketball with recyclables the most. His suggestion about recycling is to clean out bottles before placing them in a recycling container.
"Clean bottles out before putting them in a recycling bin," he said. "Because a lot of people like to chew dip and spit it in a bottle. You could recycle those bottles. It's nasty; you don't want to recycle anything like that."
The recycling event also introduces the Three Rs to recycling " reduce, reuse and recycle. By using recyclables to play games, the element of reuse is exemplified.
"That's our mission, making a difference," said Parker. "Even if we got one or two of those Soldiers to go to their barracks or go out to their units and think about what it is that they've learned from here, if we can just get one or two to start implementing a good change, then we were successful and we've done what we needed to do."
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