Green Teams from Remote British Columbia Communities Win a Free Trip to Science World from Return-It, Encorp Pacific

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - May 26, 2016) - Elementary school green teams from Zeballos and Alert Bay, BC, made a very special trip to Science World British Columbia in Vancouver last week to celebrate their award-winning BC Green Games projects, thanks to Encorp Pacific, Return-It. 2016 is the second year that Science World's province-wide sustainability storytelling contest, BC Green Games, and Encorp Pacific have teamed up to offer the Return-It Trip prize to schools across BC. This year, the popular travel subsidy prize inspired twenty green teams from all over BC to take action, educate and get creative with beverage container recycling.

Teams that choose to compete for the Return-It Trip prize look for innovative ways to incorporate beverage container recycling in their school and community and creatively communicate the importance of keeping these items out of the landfill. Preference for this prize is given to teams for whom distance creates a substantial barrier to attending their BC Green Games celebration field trip, which takes place at one of five participating BC Science Centres.

This year, the $3000 travel subsidy was shared between two teams: Zeballos Elementary-Secondary School in Zeballos, BC and T'lisalagi'lakw School in Alert Bay. These teams documented the unique challenges they had to overcome in order to institute and run beverage container recycling programs in remote areas. In the process of setting up and running the recycling programs, they managed to educate their entire school on the process of recycling and involve the local community in their efforts. These green teams also took on other forms of recycling and worm composting. All the while, these teams demonstrated excellent storytelling and communication skills in their BC Green Games submission.

"Opportunities like the Return-It travel subsidy for BC Green Games field trips are so important for BC's more remote schools. Travel in and out of these places is not only costly, it's not exactly easy. These teams travelled for over eight hours by way of two ferries and public transit to attend their celebration. For many of these kids, this was their first trip to Vancouver and it really means a lot for them to get to experience the city's cultural and educational resources." - Sandy Sigmund V.P. & CMO, Encorp Pacific (Canada).

To view the winning projects and to learn more about the Return-It Trip and BC Green Games, visit bcgreengames.ca. For information on beverage container recycling visit return-it.ca/

About Return-It

Return-It is Encorp Pacific (Canada), British Columbia's not-for-profit product stewardship corporation responsible for the collection and recycling of empty beverage containers. You probably know them best through your neighbourhood Return-It Depot.