Members of Girl Scout Senior Troop 3377 have created a banner, nicknamed “Trashy Tree,” as a prerequisite for their Girl Scout Gold Award projects. The purpose of the banner is to showcase the importance of re-using materials that would otherwise be thrown away. The girls began the project by thinking about how they could shed light upon this important issue in the community. After much deliberation, they decided to create a banner out of materials that are often cast away as “trash.”
The tree comprises trash bags, and the flowers comprise various materials, including recycled paper and soda cans. The flora in Trashy Tree represents the biological diversity both in the Northern Virginia area, as well as the rest of the world. The model of Earth that the tree sits upon illustrates that waste management and preservation of nature are responsibilities of the global community. That being said, the girls wanted to emphasize that this effort begins at the community level, starting with each and every one of us.