Essex County dog park goes green with recycled play gear

♻️ Essex County dog park gets new play equipment made entirely from recycled plastics collected at ShopRite stores.

🐶 South Mountain Reservation dogs are leaping, climbing, and loving their eco-friendly upgrades.

🌎 Partnership between ShopRite, TerraCycle, and Essex County turns hard-to-recycle waste into community treasure.

Essex County Parks, specifically, its dog park in the South Mountain Reservation, is proud to announce new dog park equipment made from recyclable materials.

ShopRite and TerraCycle team up to turn trash into tails-wagging treasure

During a year-long pilot program, ShopRite and New Jersey-based TerraCycle worked together to collect more than 4.6 tons of hard-to-recycle plastics at five ShopRite locations, and turn them into dog park equipment, said Kate Hartwyk, deputy director of the Essex County Park System.

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Flexible films that are used for potato chip bags, pet food bags, treat packs, and detergent pouches were collected from ShopRite customers at store kiosks set up in Newark, Bloomfield, Livingston, Plainfield, and Stirling.

The result was over 9,125 pounds of flexible plastics, collected and processed by TerraCycle into raw materials used to make new, durable dog park equipment at the park in Maplewood and Millburn, Hartwyk said.

Dogs delight in new eco-friendly play structures

“We were the lovely benefactors of that equipment. It’s been installed and it’s available for the public to use now,” she said.

Some of the dog equipment built from these hard-to-recycle plastics includes agility ramps, rings that allow dogs to leap back and forth, and platforms where they can lie and rest in shaded areas, Hartwyk explained.

This pilot program was a great way to encourage recycling and educate the public about how they can reuse these materials.

The dogs love their new play equipment. Hartwyk said they are using them and loving them.

Public-private partnership brings environmental win to Essex County

“I want to thank ShopRite and TerraCycle for donating the new equipment to our South Mountain Dog Park. We appreciate their interest in wanting to help out and choosing our dog park at the location to make a donation,” said Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. at a ribbon-cutting ceremony over the summer.

He said not only will this contribute to the dog park, but it will also remove recyclable materials from waste streams and landfills.

The project is a true testament to how public-private partnerships and community engagement can transform waste into lasting, local impact.

Will more New Jersey dog parks get recycled makeovers?

“This was an initiative that ShopRite started to collect this hard-to-recycle material, and when they Google-searched the best dog parks in northern New Jersey, our dog park came out in the top, so we were the lucky benefactors of this program,” Hartwyk said.

Does ShopRite plan to do this program again with another New Jersey dog park?
Hartwyk doesn’t know, but she did say that the Essex County Park System has five other dog parks, so she’s hoping ShopRite will come back with more dog park equipment for those parks, as well.

For now, the dogs at South Mountain Reservation are living large and loving life.

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