South Greensburg church team recognized for recycling program

Recycling is a matter of faith as well as good citizenship for a group of volunteers at St. Bruno Parish in South Greensburg.

The Creation Care Team’s drop-off recycling program for materials including metal cans and glass containers has been embraced by local residents. The effort also has garnered praise from Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful, a Greensburg-based nonprofit whose mission includes encouraging cleanups of litter and illegal dumpsites across the state.

The grassroots recycling group is among organizations honored this year with Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful’s 2022 Community Partner Award. The award “recognizes volunteers for significant and positive impacts toward keeping local communities clean and beautiful.”

The Creation Care Team was formed in 2016, inspired by an encyclical issued the previous year by Pope Francis.

That message focused on “care for the natural environment and all people, as well as broader questions of the relationship between God, humans and the Earth,” said Tom Niggel, a founding member of the volunteer group.

Other group members have included area college professors and two Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill.

That initial gathering of seven people, Niggel said, decided to “spearhead an action plan to address the recycling issue in South Greensburg. Because the number of residents in the community is below the threshold that mandates (curbside) recycling, there was no active program to address waste.”

The only effort that continues to be available on the municipal level is recycling of paper products, which can be dropped off in bins near the South Greensburg Borough garage.

Niggel’s group began to fill the recycling gap by accepting drop-off of aluminum cans outside the St. Bruno church. Since then, he said, the effort has diverted about 4 tons of aluminum from the waste stream.

The collected aluminum products are taken regularly to the nearby Daniels & Miller recycling business in Greensburg. The group since has added tin cans to the mix of items delivered there.

More recently, the team has begun accepting glass containers and some types of plastic foam packing materials, which are recycled at the nonprofit Westmoreland Cleanways and Recycling center in Unity.

“Aluminum and glass are both products that can be recycled indefinitely,” Niggel said. Money received for the aluminum remains with the parish, to assist with its community outreach efforts, he said.

The tin cans, he added, “will one day be recycled into auto parts or the like.”

The recycling program at St. Bruno received a boost last year when Chase Regester, 16, now a junior at Hempfield Area High School, led construction of a shelter on church property to house the drop-off site.

Situated on a gravel base, the three-sided wooden structure provides an area where collection receptacles can be organized and kept out of the rain and snow. Regester completed the shelter as his Eagle Scout project for Troop 405, which meets at the St. Bruno church hall.

He received donated materials from Home Depot and had help from about 25 other volunteers, including fellow Scouts and their parents.

“I think it turned out really well,” Regester said of the shelter. “It’s an eco-friendly setup. There isn’t any stain on the fencing.”

Members of the Creation Care Team sort deposited glass containers into clear, green and brown colors and transport them to the Westmoreland Cleanways center on a weekly basis.

Recyclable materials received at that Cleanways center near Pleasant Unity totaled about 2.3 million pounds last year, up from more than 1.9 million pounds in 2021, according to executive director Mike Skapura. He added that glass items totaled nearly 126,000 pounds last year, up from about 90,000 pounds in the previous year.

The St. Bruno site stopped accepting recyclable plastic items in October, after the influx of plastic became overwhelming.

Group member Kerry Smartnick estimated the site took in about 800 plastic water bottles per week between April and October. She said the group is encouraging people to reduce the amount of plastic they use through such steps as investing in aluminum water bottles.

“We hope to engage in education through our weekly bulletin at church,” she said, along with signage at the shelter.

Staff at Westmoreland Cleanways nominated the Creation Care Team for the Community Partner Award.

Skapura noted the group at St. Bruno “didn’t just limit (recycling) to parishioners. They opened it up to the community.

“They take out of their own time to bring the materials to us or to Daniels & Miller. They do it on their own time with their own vehicles. It helps further our mission statement.”

“No matter the weather, the team of volunteers visits the (drop-off shelter) daily to ensure that the bins are not overflowing and creating unintentional litter,” said Natalie Reese, Westmoreland Cleanways program director.

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful also presented a Community Partner Award to the City of McKeesport, whose officials and staff have secured resources, funding and volunteers to help clean up illegal dumpsites in the Mon Valley. Allegheny Cleanways nominated Jan Nehilla for a Volunteer of the Year Award, recognizing her work on dumpsite cleanups.

Visit westmorelandcleanways.org for more information about recycling in Westmoreland County.