Owens club helps keep worn jeans, jackets out of landfills

Owens Environmental Club student representative Hannah Jacobs of Luckey, left, assists Amy Hansen and Erek Hansen, both Curtice residents, in sorting the donated denim materials. OWENS COMMUNITY COLLEGE Enlarge

Owens Community College’s Environmental Club recent efforts to collect more than 500 worn-out jeans, jackets and purses helped a national program to bring new life to the items and keep them out of landfills.

The club recently presented the denim materials to Eisenhower Middle School sixth grader Erek Hansen of Curtice to assist in his personal goal of collecting over 5,000 items for the program. Last year, the 11-year-old collected 3,920 denim items. Those donated items will be give to the national environmental program by UltraTouch National Cotton Fiber Insulation.

“I like to keep the jeans out of the landfill,” explained Hansen. “We have become wasteful and I want to conserve our resources.”

He added, “I want thank Owens Community College for their donation. It really means a lot to me. It is neat to see that people really care about our environment and recycling.”

Since the start of the denim drive in 2006, the program has received a total of more than 500,000 pieces of denim and provided enough UltraTouch National Cotton Fiber Insulation for approximately 1.5 million square feet of insulation to assist with building efforts for communities in need.