Pine Ridge Middle School students turn trash into art during the Midlands Recycling Challenge

West Columbia, SC - Some might see plastic caps as trash, but not students at Pine Ridge Middle School.

Students have spent the past several weeks collecting plastic caps as part of the , in partnership with Dominion Energy. Tuesday, students began assembling environmentally-themed murals with the roughly 128 pounds of caps collected. The murals will hang in various areas of the school once completed.

Five area schools -- two from Lexington Two and three from Richland One -- are participating in the Recycling Challenge, coordinated by Communities in Schools. Wood Elementary, the other Lexington Two school, will create sensory bottles next week with the plastic caps its students have been collecting.

Photo Caption: Pine Ridge Middle eighth-grader Haleigh Glymph sorts through some of the plastic caps that will be used to create murals for the school.