NAGS HEAD, N.C. — The weight of a plastic shopping bag may seem inconsequential, but across the Outer Banks the past few years, women have diligently collected, weighed and shipped off 3,500 pounds of plastic bags for their conversion into weather-resistant outdoor benches.
“That’s a lot of plastic that didn’t go into the environment,” said Dawn Bratburd, who co-chairs the Outer Banks Woman’s Club’s environment committee with Deb Howell.
On April 25, the fog and chilly breeze did nothing to dampen the spirits of event attendees at the club’s sixth bench dedication.
This most recent bench, representing 1,000 pounds of plastic, is now at the Community Care Clinic of Dare, located at 425 Health Center Drive in Nags Head, North Carolina.
“We are so grateful to you all,” Lyn Jenkins, executive director of the Community Care Clinic, said in her event remarks. “We have a lot of people that need a comfortable bench.”
Jenkins said some patients at the clinic, which serves the uninsured and the under-insured, are dropped off and can find themselves waiting for five hours for the county’s medical transportation to pick them back up.
The bench could also be useful for “someone at the dental clinic with a child, or maybe someone who doesn’t like to hear dental drills wants to wait out there.”
The gray bench is situated under a roof that covers the outside walkway area on the dental side of the clinic.
The Outer Banks Woman’s Club distributed its first five benches to locations from Southern Shores to Nags Head in recent years.
While other community groups have since begun using the Trex program to convert bags to benches, the 93-member-strong Outer Banks Woman’s Club was the first local organization to do so, according to Bratburd.
They maintain bins at the Thomas A. Baum Senior Center in Kill Devil Hills, the Outer Banks Family YMCA in Nags Head and Coldwell Banker Seaside Realty in Kitty Hawk.
Club members collect the plastic bags a couple times a week, weigh and record the poundage and take the bags to Harris Teeter in Kill Devil Hills.
Harris Teeter sends the bags to Trex, and the club is “very thankful” for the store’s assistance, Bratburd said.
Club member Janet Barker had worked with the program in Virginia before she moved to North Carolina and introduced the club to the program, according to Jo Williams, a former environment committee chair.
Williams wasn’t sure they’d be able to collect the necessary 500 pounds of plastic in six months when they first began.
“I mean, it sounded like a lot, but we had no problem doing that,” Williams said. “And we’ve gotten more and more and more as time has gone by.”
Other local groups started collecting bags, and about 12 benches in total have come to the community, Williams said.
“Everybody loves this project; everybody wants to bring their plastic in,” Williams said. “And it’s really grown.”
The benches are like Trex railings and deck furniture and withstand the elements well, she noted.
“They’re made for the beach,” Williams said. “So hopefully they’ll be around for a long, long time.”
