Students make sculptures with message 'Plastics are forever'

For the first time, students at the Howard T. Herber Middle School in Malverne are participating in the Disney Planet Challenge, in which they had to pick a global issue that is also a local concern and pose a solution to it.

After much brainstorming and debate, the eighth-grade science-research class decided to cover pollution, specifically with relation to plastics and their ability or inability to be recycled. Together, they have launched a school-wide campaign titled “Plastics Are Forever.”

With all of the knowledge they’ve gathered, the students began a “bottle brigade,” asking for all students and staff members to drop empty water bottles into specially marked recycle bins. Instead of bringing the bottles to the local recycling center, students used all of the empty bottles to create large animal sculptures.

The group hopes this will send a message to students and the surrounding community to cut back on water bottle usage, and to think about the animals that may be affected if a water bottle is improperly disposed.