From Rejects to Art Supply

Judith Mayer, a fellow member of Keep Brevard Beautiful Central Chapter, one day called me to share that she had found a company in Cocoa that was willing to donate its production scraps and rejects as long as the material was picked up at their facility. The company is Elastec/American Marine and the material is styrofoam (different shapes and kinds) and rope, in other words, non-recyclable materials.


I contacted Viera High School Art teacher Susan West and Manatee Elementary Art teacher Ashley Heribacka. They both showed interest in receiving the material to use in their classes.

Last Thursday, April 12th, I followed Judith to Elastec and picked up fours big bags of styrofoam and two piles of rope that filled up my car. Two bags of foam got delivered to Manatee on Friday and the rest will be going to Viera High this week.

I sent an email to Brevard's Reuse Center (Reusable Resources Adventure Center - RRAC) to see if they would be interested in collecting the scraps/rejects too. There is so much of the rejects that we could avoid adding to our landfills and so many other teachers that could benefit from using them in their classes that would be a shame if they do not get re-purposed through a channel like RRAC.

It will not be the end of styrofoam in our landfills, but it is a step forward for our local community: we avoid more scraps/rejects being sent out to the landfill, and help public schools get free material for their classes.

Recycle Brevard!