Egg carton bus completed at Sherwood Memorial Library

Posted

Egg carton bus completed at Sherwood Memorial Library

By Shiloh Appel

After making a life-sized igloo out of milk jugs last year, the Doland Sherwood Memorial Library completed another fun recycling project recently: a bus made of egg cartons. The project took months to create, and used 575 egg cartons.

“I started on September 19th and finished March 10th,” said librarian, Natasha Noethlich. “The summer reading program was NASA outer space exploring and someone had sent me a rocket ship made out of egg cartons, so I kind of thought ‘well, this might be something fun. I could make something out of egg cartons.’ So, I started that way. I figured it would be fun to make a bus because it was something different.”

Noethlich put the word out on her Facebook page that she was looking for donated egg cartons. She also passed the word along in her city report and sent notes home with school kids.

“It took a lot longer to collect egg cartons because so many people in this area raise chickens and give and sell eggs, so they wanted to keep those a little bit more than they wanted to keep empty milk jugs,” said Noethlich.

After all 575 cartons were finally put together with the help of some hot glue, however, the final product was worth it. Noethlich made  the wheels and lights out of construction paper, and the signs on the front and back of the bus were made by a “first grader with a pencil.” Noethlich traced the signs with a black Sharpie and attached them to the bus.

“The kids enjoy using it very much so far. They have a lot of fun pretending to drive around town in it and crash over each other,” said Noethlich. “The steering wheel in it is being borrowed from Stuart Bell, who is the local auto body guy  in town. The steering wheel is over 100 years old. Kids pick up that steering wheel and pretend like they are driving.”

Currently, the inside of the library is closed to visitors due to virus precautions, but curbside service is still available. Once the library reopens after the pandemic, the bus will still be there waiting. Library hours are 10a.m.-5:30p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Noethlich can be contacted at the library at 635-6955.