Buddy benches: 750 pounds of plastic. 3 benches. Possibly a lifetime of friendship

It's difficult to visualize just how massive 750 pounds is. It's equivalent to 50 bowling balls or 80 house cats. Heavier than two ATMs or half the size of a full grown cow. Around one-tenth of the weight of a blue whale’s tongue.

That's how much plastic a small, private Christian school in Bloomington collected and recycled in just one school year. But collecting brightly colored rubbish was just the first step.

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This year, students at Clear Creek Christian School have recycled 750 pounds of plastic by turning bottle caps into three "buddy benches," designed to help shy children more easily find friends on the playground. School personnel said it's a project that allows students to learn more about environmental issues while also emphasizing the importance of inclusive play.

Outside classroom: What you learn by sorting nearly a thousand pounds of plastic

This is the third year students at the K-6 private school have collaborated with a local nonprofit for project-based learning, an instructional approach that gives students the opportunity to learn by working on a challenge or problem experienced in the real world. For past projects, the school partnered with Community Kitchen and Cancer Support Community to donate food for children in low-income households and sew pillows for cancer patients undergoing treatment.

Then-incoming principal Scott Wallace first brought the idea of an annual service project, involving the entire student population of around 150 students, to Clear Creek. The point of this instruction is to enable students to learn from real life, so the school partners with a local nonprofit to figure out how students can meaningfully contribute.

"I think there's a tendency, when it comes to project-based learning, that kids are expected to create novel solutions to challenging problems," Wallace said. "And of course, you know, we want to encourage kids to come up with novel solutions, but I also think that it does a disservice to the people who devote their lives to that problem — to think that a 9-year-old has a better understanding of this complex topic.”

When the collection was finished earlier this year, the lobby at the school was turned into a giant sorting site. In phases, classmates sorted through the bags.

"It was compelling to see how much plastic even just our community encounters and that we could divert this much of it out of the waste stream," Wallace said, adding that they ended up tossing about 300 pounds of unusable waste. "(Seeing) the amount of waste was significant to kids."

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Fourth grader Derek Lane remembers having a checklist of what sort of plastic was OK to be placed in the recycle pile, which should be put in the excluded pile and which could be categorized in the "maybe" section for a closer look. Most of the plastic was collected from the students' households. Lane said he saw a lot of ice cream lids when he was sorting.

The benches have been painted purple, but some multi-colored remnants of the compacted caps are still visible.

"I've never seen plastic be turned into something cool before," Lane exclaimed.

Fourth grader Lucy Callahan was also amazed when the long benches arrived at school. The last time she had seen them, each piece of plastic was in various shapes, colors and sizes.

"I can't believe they can do that," Callahan said.

She really likes taking part in the annual service project. She said she still thinks about the pillows and hats she helped make for cancer patients undergoing treatment last year. It's these memories that give the lessons a concrete tether.

"I've had parents tell me that they're more vigilant about looking in their trash and noticing what can be recycled and challenging their families to continue to recycle rather than just throwing things away," Wallace said. "So it does seem to give them a reference point for the amount of plastic that we encounter."

What is a buddy bench? Recycled plastic turned into a playground tool

Clear Creek will donate a bench to nonprofits Monroe County United Ministries and New Hope for Families, both of which provide early child care for families undergoing financial hardships. A third bench will be installed at Clear Creek's playground.

These benches are visual cues where kids can sit to signal to others they are looking to play, but haven't been invited by anyone yet. They're meant to be a tool to reduce social isolation and encourage friendship-building, especially for children who are naturally shy and can't easily approach others.

The bench can be used by those who may be new to the school, looking for friends or just wanting to play a game.

"My favorite part of this is helping people be included," Lane said, adding there have been sometimes where he, like every kid, has felt lonely on the playground. "A buddy bench will be good for people like me."

Reach Rachel Smith at rksmith@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Clear Creek Christian School collects nearly 1,000 pounds of plastic