Contact: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Friday, September 25, 2009

Environmentally conscious students will gather loads of aluminum this fall during the annual “Cans for Cash” City Recycling Challenge. All across Lexington, the theme is “Yes We Can!”   

The schools that collect the most cans per capita (total weight of aluminum divided by number of students) will win cash prizes: $1,250 for first, $1,000 for second and $750 for third place. The results will be announced in mid to late November.

The nationwide contest, which runs Oct. 1-31, encourages communities and schools to be a part of the solution: Recycling conserves natural resources and energy. For example, recycling 40 cans saves the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline; that means the energy saved by recycling 10 million cans is equivalent to 250,000 gallons of gasoline.

Last year in Fayette County, more than 117,000 cans were recycled by 19 public and private schools. Communitywide, participants tallied more than 133,000 pounds – that’s roughly 4 million cans.

The local prize sponsors are Baker Iron and Metal, Gordon Scrap Iron and Metal, Wise Recycling and LFUCG’s Division of Waste Management.

The three companies will also pay for aluminum cans dropped off at their facilities, so even the schools that don’t win a prize will receive money for the cans they do recycle. The going rate for aluminum is about 45 cents per pound, and it takes 32 cans to make one pound.

The contest is sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Novelis Corp. (a world leader in aluminum rolling and recycling) and Keep America Beautiful Inc. LFUCG’s Bluegrass Partnership for a Green Community is the organizer for Lexington, and Bluegrass PRIDE is handling school registrations this year.

For more information, contact Maxine Rudder, education director at Bluegrass PRIDE, at (859) 266-1572 or e-mail Maxine@bgpride.org.

• School registration form