IKEA Website
IKEA's recycling and trash bins, to be donated to NHPS.
More than $3,000 worth of trash and recycling bins are headed to New Haven Public Schools (NHPS), thanks to a recent donation from IKEA.
The Board of Education signed off on accepting that donation as part of new category of action items to vote on at last week’s meeting, this time without the typical costly price tag.
The school board voted unanimously to accept a donation from the Swedish furniture giant.
The IKEA donation was one of three recent gifts the school district has received at no cost. The other two donations came from the Diaper Bank of Connecticut and Amazon, which donated supplies to schools for the district’s menstrual equity project.
The IKEA donation approved on Tuesday totals to $3,447.60 for the district to receive 165 16-gallon recycling bins and 75 three-gallon trash bins.
Click here to view the full donation document approved by the board .
NHPS recycling lead Michelle Martinelli told the Independent she has been working in partnership with the city’s recycling educator, Rose Richi, to get all schools up and running with recycling practices.
“We meet with Principals, teacher champions etc, to determine how it will work for each individual school and then coordinate with DPW [Department of Public Works] to have toters delivered and pick up days scheduled. One problem that we have encountered is that not all classrooms have the blue recycle containers to get them started,” she said.
When IKEA marketing specialist Bryan Sliech reached out to NHPS asking how the company could support NHPS’ environmental and sustainability effort, Martinelli and Rose came up with getting recycling bins for school classrooms.
The donated 165 recycling bins will be used for five schools and will be delivered by IKEA using their electric vehicle (EV) delivery trucks.
Martinelli said the donated recycling bins will ultimately go to Obama, King Robinson, Martinez, Clemente and Wilbur Cross schools.