School principal Mary Hawk is hoping Bristol folks will help the school get a free playscape and in order to do this we have to go to a site to vote. This can be done by anyone as many times as they want daily, every day or whenever. Go to: www.terracycle.com/en-US/contests/colgateshopriteplayground2019 .

TerraCycle recycles the traditionally “non-recyclable” products such as coffee capsules, pens, or plastic gloves. In the TerraCycle recycling challenge, sponsored by Colgate and ShopRite, schools across the region compete to collect as much oral care waste as possible and send it in to TerraCycle.

BRISTOL - Ivy Drive Elementary School is in it to win it - a new playscape for the kids, that is.   The school is in the same online contest as Mountain View Elementary School and two other local schools, where people can vote daily for their favorite school to win new playground equipment.   The regional contest is running now through June 30, when the winners will be announced. Mountain View is currently the frontrunner. Ivy Drive has moved up to fourth place. South Side and Stafford elementaries are now in 24th and 26th place respectively.   “We think it is great that Mountain View is in first place,” said Ivy Drive Principal Rosie Vojtek. “We aspire to be like them (in first place) and continue to keep working to get people to vote. A win for any school in Bristol is a win for everyone who lives in Bristol! We like competition, so to Mountain View and the other schools in Bristol that are competing in this 2019 Colgate & ShopRite Recycled Playground Challenge, I say, ‘bring it on!’”   Colgate, ShopRite and TerraCycle, a recycling company that specializes in hard-to-recycle waste, are running the contest, in which one school can win a colorful new playscape made from recycled materials, with a retail value of $55,000.   The prize for the first runner-up school is a village playhouse and slide made from recycled materials, with a retail value of $25,000.   The second runner-up school will get a ShopRite gift card for $1,250. The next six runner-up schools will each receive a ShopRite gift card for $150.   The recycled materials used are oral care waste, according to the contest website. These consist of toothpaste tubes and caps, toothbrushes, toothpaste cartons, toothbrush outer packaging, and floss containers, which are shredded and melted into hard plastic that can be remolded into new products.   Vojtek said she is not sure when the playscape at Ivy Drive was built, but it was already in place 20 years ago when she became principal and it is too small.   “Likewise, we have the medically fragile students at Ivy Drive from across the district. Because of the wood chips around the playscape, the students in wheelchairs can’t play next to the rest of the children,” she said.   “At the time our school was renovated, part of the original thinking was to add on to the playscape and make it handicapped accessible. However, when the school renovation project was completed in 2007, they put a smaller playscape in the pre-k and kindergarten court area instead of something for all of the students to play on,” she explained.   Vojtek said “Ivy Drive has talked about adding to the playscape since I have been here, but it wasn’t until last year that a PTA committee was formed to start actively fundraising for a new playscape.”   The student council did a survey to find out what the students would like to see added to the playground, she said. “Their number one idea was a zipline. They also would like bars or overhead ladders to climb and hang from which could help to improve their core and upper body strength and overall fitness.”   “We used to have a swing set that we set up for the medically fragile students to use,” she said. “The swings are no longer safe to use, but the bar is still outside and students take turns crossing it once they are tall enough to jump up on their own to grab onto the bar.”   Though Vojtek is planning to retire at the end of this school year, her ambitions for the playground don’t stop there.   “We just really need to increase the playground options for our students while they are outside having fun,” she said. “I personally would love to see a fitness trail where students could walk or run to different stations and do an activity before moving to the next station.”   “This side of town doesn’t have a park within walking distance, so when school is not in session, families that live around Ivy Drive hang out and play on the playscape,” Vojtek continued. “It would be great to make Ivy Drive School a hub - a safe place where parents can bring their children to play and socialize.”   Mountain View Principal Mary Hawk has noted her school’s playscape was so old it was condemned and torn down. “The other schools already have playscapes,” she said. “We just have a pile of dirt.”   Susan Corica can be reached at 860-973-1802 or scorica@bristolpress.com.   There are two ways for people to help whichever school is their favorite.   1. Vote for the school daily at the contest website https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/contests/colgateshopriteplayground2019.   Participants can vote daily using and every separate email address counts as a vote. The first vote will require you to confirm your email to make the vote count. After that each vote is a simple click.   2. Send the school your oral care containers to recycle.   Each vote will count as one Playground Credit and each unit of used, post-consumer oral care waste will count as one Playground Credit. A “unit” is defined as 0.02 lbs of used, post-consumer oral care products and packaging.  

BRISTOL - The students of Mountain View Elementary School need a new playscape and Principal Mary Hawk wants your help.   Hawk said the school has signed up for an online contest where people can vote daily for their favorite school to win new playground equipment.   Colgate, ShopRite, and TerraCycle, a recycling company that specializes in hard-to-recycle waste, are running the contest, in which one school can win a colorful new playscape made from recycled materials, with a retail value of $55,000.   The prize for the first runner-up school is a village playhouse and slide made from recycled materials, with a retail value of $25,000.   The second runner-up school will get a ShopRite gift card for $1,250. The next six runner-up schools will each receive a ShopRite gift card for $150.   The recycled materials used are oral care waste, according to the contest website. These consist of toothpaste tubes and caps, toothbrushes, toothpaste cartons, toothbrush outer packaging, and floss containers, which are shredded and melted into hard plastic that can be remolded into new products.   The regional contest is running now through June 30, when the winners will be announced. Mountain View is the frontrunner.   There are two ways to help Mountain View.   1. Vote for the school daily at the contest website https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/contests/colgateshopriteplayground2019.   Participants can vote daily using and every separate email address counts as a vote. The first vote will require you to confirm your email to make the vote count. After that, each vote is a click.   2. Send Mountain View your oral care containers to recycle.   Each vote will count as one Playground Credit and each unit of used, post-consumer oral care waste will count as one Playground Credit. A “unit” is defined as 0.02 pounds of used, post-consumer oral care products and packaging.   The kids are all bringing in their used toothpaste tubes now, and they’re getting a good message about recycling as well, Hawk said.   If people want to donate their recyclable dental materials, they can just bring it to the school anytime during the school day, she said. “We would love to have other people in the community contribute, that would be wonderful.”   Hawk said if a dental office, nursing home, hospital, or any organization that uses dental supplies wants to donate, “we will go pick it up from them.”   Mountain View has been looking to replace its rusting, corroded playscape since 2017 when Pete Fusco, director of grounds, did an inspection and declared it unsafe. The pre-kindergarten kids have their own playground, which is usable, but the older students just have hopscotch, basketball courts, and other games painted on the blacktop nearby.   Right now there is just a pile of dirt where the old playscape was behind the school. It was 30 years old and was attacked by vandals at night, leaving sharp jagged holes. Hawk said it would have cost as much as $10,000 to repair.   Tabacco & Sons Builders volunteered to remove the pieces and bring them to Liberty Recycling, but in the end the school didn’t even get money from the scrap metal because there was so much cement attached to it, she said.   Since then, the school has been fundraising for a new playscape, she said. “They’re are just incredibly expensive. They range from $40,000 to $120,000, so it’s a monumental task to try to raise all the money.”   Mountain Drive isn’t the only local elementary school in the contest. Ivy Drive, South Side, and Stafford are too, though they are farther down in the competition: Ivy Drive is currently at seventh place, South Side is 19th, and Stafford is 21st.   “But they already have playscapes,” Hawk said. “We just have a pile of dirt.”   Susan Corica can be reached at 860-973-1802 or scorica@bristolpress.com.  

The playground will be constructed completely from recycled dental products, such as empty toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes and floss containers. The contest is sponsored by TerraCycle, Colgate and ShopRite. What the playground looks like can be seen above.

It’s among the top 30 collectors in the Glad Food Storage Brigade, a free national recycling program. Their collection and recycling efforts have helped raise more than $119,000 toward the benefit of nonprofits and schools across the country, while saving plastic containers and wraps from landfills.