As a part of America Recycles Day (ARD), the Indiana Recycling Coalition (IRC) hosted its third annual video contest as a way to help Indiana middle and high school students develop a better understanding of why recycling helps Hoosier businesses, communities and organizations save money by reducing, reusing and/or recycling and how new jobs can be created as a result of recycling.

Winners were announced on America Recycles Day, Tuesday, November 15th and are as follows:

Middle School Winners

First Prize: Greenfield Intermediate School (Alex Carlson, Cole Cooper, Cole Dingman, Kayla Enochs, Andrew Leslie, Liahona Lukens, Jenna Parsons, Trevor Teague, Katelyn Thompson, Alexis Wolf, Veronica Yanis)

Second Prize: Angola Middle School (Ethan Garman, Baylee Mohamedali, Caitlin Lanning, Makenna Reyes, Bailey Reffeitt, Isabella Ramirez)

Third Prize: West Central Middle School Ecology Club (Kendall Nine, Adriana Barlow, Alex Boisselier, Elana Jonkman, Lindsey Jonkman, Emily Murphy, Andrew Neely, Randi Nine

High School Winners

First Prize: McKenzie Center For Information and Technology (Eron Harris, Robbie Jackson, Denzel Bledsoe, Alex Nauth, Jimmy Cook)

Second Prize: McKenzie Center For Information and Technology (Briana Stutts, Terell Wheeler, Devante Moore, Cameron Fewell, Christian Swinford)

Third Prize: Mason Yao, Carmel High School

Honorable Mention: McKenzie Center For Information and Technology (Karl Brunner, Brett Leedy, Alexander Floyd)

The McKenzie Center has entered and won awards in each of the three years the contest has been held, including first place in the inaugural year, third place in 2010’s contest, and this year’s first, second and honorable mentions.

“The entries this year were really spot on,” said contest coordinator Monica Brase. “The entrants did a great job of finding statistics and information about the economic aspects of recycling and making them understandable and interesting” she added.

The video contest was generously sponsored by the Indiana Household Hazardous Waste Task Force and Keep America Beautiful. Winners received cash prizes and were invited to attend a screening of all the videos and a reception at the Indianapolis Art Center’s Basile Theatre.

Click here to view the middle school videos. Click here to view the high school videos.

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The mission of the IRC is to support source reduction, reuse, composting and recycling activities in Indiana. To encourage integrated recycling, the Coalition supports buying recycled-content products, and the collection and remanufacturing of recyclable materials. The goal of this support is to conserve our natural resources, decrease reliance on final disposal and to encourage environmental responsibility.