The Cedar Shoals High School "Proud about Cedar Shoals" (PACS) group, in cooperation with the Athens-Clarke County (ACC) Solid Waste Department Recycling Division, received a national first place award from Keep America Beautiful on December 5, 2003.

At a ceremony held in Washington, D.C., seven students and one teacher from the Cedar Shoals High School PACS group, along with ACC Recycling Division staff, accepted a national first place award in the Waste Reduction category for schools. This national award recognizes the PACS student group for having the most outstanding school recycling program in the nation, and commends the group for its efforts to promote waste reduction through waste-wise handling practices such as reducing, reusing, and recycling on their high school campus.

The Cedar Shoals High School PACS recycling program was selected from school waste reduction and recycling programs nationwide. This is the second time the Cedar Shoals High School PACS group and ACC Recycling Division have been awarded for their collaborative efforts in waste reduction and recycling projects in the high school.

In 2003, PACS and the ACC Recycling Division received a second place state award from Keep Georgia Beautiful in the Schools Category for Waste Reduction. PACS has also received grant funding to support their recycling program efforts. In 2002, the group was awarded a $1,000 grant from the Weyerhaeuser Foundation for their outstanding efforts in paper recycling.

Also in 2002, a"PET Plastics Recycling Initiative Grant" was awarded to ACC in the amount of $1,000. The grant funding was used to educate area high school students about #1 PET plastic container recycling, and to promote the collection of #1 PET plastic beverage containers on campus.

Cedar Shoals High School was selected as the local high school to pilot the #1 PET collection program and was the FIRST high school in the Northeast Georgia region to implement a campus-wide education and collection program for recycling #1 PET plastic containers.

ACC also received a grant from the National Association for PET Container Recycling (NAPCOR). Funding from this grant was used to purchase #1 PET collection containers ("PETE's Big Bins) for use in the high school program.

For more information contact the Athens-Clarke County Recycling Division at 613-3512.