Friends of Mahaska County Conservation had hoped to reach the 1 million mark on plastic shopping/grocery bags collected for recycling with an aggressive goal of collecting 300,000 bags during 2025. Unfortunately, we did not reach our goal but we did collect 176,000 bags which is the second highest amount collected since we began in 2019. In addition to the 176,000 HDPE #2 bags, we also collected 600 pounds of LDPE #4 bags. During 2025, the North Mahaska Elementary students collected over 23,000 bags in three weeks, E-cycle generated 2,500 bags, Central Church Bible School collected over 1,600 bags during Bible School and the Golden Goose Club collected over 32,000 bags for our campaign. The rest of the bags came from all of the Mahaska County residents who brought their bags to our recycling buildings or mobile trailer or from other ndividuals that have supported our program.
Since 2019, we have collected over 16,000 pounds of bags from our various collection events, mobile trailer, collection buildings and local business partners. All bags are being taken to Plastic Recycling of Iowa Falls for processing and are not going to the Mahaska County Landfill or littering our countryside.
A new collection building has been placed at the Environmental Learning Center in the lower level gravel parking lot. Below is a picture of the building. This building has been constructed with recyclable material except for the new trim. Many thanks goes out to Mahaska County Solid Waste Manager Joe Farris for his help in obtaining this material that was otherwise destined for the landfill.
A big THANK YOU to all the help and support you have given us for this project. Together, we are making a difference and helping to improve our environment. Every bag YOU recycle is kept out of our landfill.
KEEP RECYCLING – we only need 124,000 bags to reach our goal of ONE MILLION!
