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One of the most important aspects of the American experience is our political process.  People will argue with you until they are blue in the face (or red, depending on their affiliation) about their choice in leaders, but at the end of the day - we have the freedom to choose.  Now, one Louisiana teenager is asking us to make another choice for our country after the polls close.

Two years ago, Tre Bishop (the son of the republican State Representative Stuart Bishop) started a program to take care of the tons of political yard signs littering Louisiana in the aftermath of elections.  These so-called "bandit signs" are made from plastic, so chunking them in the state's landfills was no-good.  Unfortunately, most of these signs are made from a type of plastic that isn't easily recycled either.

Tre realized this, so he set out to find a viable solution - and that's exactly what he did!  This 13-year-old from Lafayette was able to find a center in Alabama capable of recycling the specific, #5 plastic that these tiny billboards are made out of.  Thanks to Tre, these attention-grabbing vote-getters will have new lives as plastic pipes, packaging, and lots of other products.  Once that was settled, this Louisiana teen launched a campaign to collect the signs and ship them off.

The project was so successful, the LA Illuminator reports that he expanded the program to include several more cities in the region - but that's not enough.  With a little help from some friends in high places, Tre wants to take his program statewide.

Yesterday, the 7th-grader stood in front of lawmakers in Baton Rouge to introduce a bill authored by Rep. Malinda White from Bogalusa that (when it becomes a law) will direct every city in Louisiana to collect these signs once an election is over in order to properly recycle them.  The bill received tons of praise, and advanced without a single shred of opposition.

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