Although crayon company Crayola said they do not intend to create a recycling program for their markers, a group of students’ petition for such a program continues to gain signatures.
Their change.org petition, called “Crayola, Make Your Mark,” asks Crayola executives to create a take-back program that will enable an easy way to recycle the nearly half a billion plastic markers the company makes every year. As of Monday, the petition had over 62,000 signatures.
The Washington Post reported that Crayola has no plans to create a recycling program due to a “lack of facilities and process.”
The marker company’s spokesperson Stacy Gabrielle told the Post that:
“because only the marker plastic is recyclable, not the ink reservoir or the tip, we do not recommend that consumers recycle the markers themselves. It would require the removal of the nib and reservoir which could create small parts, a choking hazard to small children.”
Gabrielle instead encouraged that just the caps be recycled.
The Sun Valley group who took on the campaign is made up of kids from kindergarten to fifth grade. Land Wilson, a school volunteer with the group, says the kids are hopeful Crayola will make their current recycling program – an internal program that includes only markers malformed during production – available to all consumers.
“I’m so proud of these kids,” Wilson said. “After learning how many plastic products end up in landfills, incinerators and our oceans, these students decided to take action and ask this major international company to help.”
Their petition gained around 40,000 signatures last week, and climbed to over 60,000 this weekend.
“Crayola is a company that makes products I believe in,” Lorraine Valdespino commented on the petition’s site. “Give me another reason to believe in Crayola's magic!”
