Bottle top & other convert to caЈh scemes?

A question about : Bottle top & other convert to caЈh scemes?

Hello

Not sure if this is the right place?

I am looking for places that appeal for items such as bottle tops (mainly plastic) and other recyclable bits that the charity can convert to cash for fundraising.

There used to be a scheme near me that did this with plastic bottle tops but I recently went to drop off my carrier bag full to find they have stopped collecting them.

Naturally I dont just want to waste an opportunity by throwing them away as we do seem to collect quite a few in a week and I now find I automatically put it in the collection cup instead of the bin when the bottles are empty.

Our local council has supplied us with a green recycle bin which we manage to fill within 24 hrs of them emptying it (we are desparate for another 1 at least!) and the rest ends up in carrier bags which they wont take as extra so we take them to the supermarket and use the recycle units there or at the park when we walk the dog.

Any ideas?

Thanks

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Best answers:

• This may be an urban myth, but I read somewhere about people that collected thousands and thousands of plastic bottle tops for charity, only to find out that it was all a big hoax. If you do hear of somewhere that uses them, I'd be interested to hear!
• I think it's a hoax too. Did some looking via Google last year and concluded that it was likely to be a hoax.
  Our recycling centre asks you to remove the tops because the bottles are easier to crush with the tops removed.
  The tops are clearly a different kind of plastic to that of the bottle but even so, the volume to weight ratio is likely to make recycling uneconomical.
  I crush the bottles and refit the tops so that they stay crushed thereby taking up less space in my plastic bottle bin. When the bin is full I take the bottles to the recycling centre. It's probably a mile or so and the environmental damage probably outweighs any benefit that the recycling may achieve. I think I should put the bottles in the non-recyclable wheelie-bin.
  Cardboard is a similar story as this is not collected by the council recycling team either.
  GG
• Hi Thanks for the replies.
  Thought I would let you know that the council replied to my email.
  1 there was a localcharity collecting the bottle caps but they abandoned it as it wasnt making enough profit.
  2 I have been supplied with a secon bigger green recycling wheelie bin FREE so I now have 2. I noted it takes around a week to fill to bursting 1 and they collect every 2 weeks so this should be ok. If not husband enjoys climbing in and compacting it all down by foot, lol Oscar grouch!
  I cannot see any other way I can reduce the packaging we use anymore than we do now unless the supermarket sells the items unwrapped / unpackaged!
  Thanks
• There is definitely a collection in the SW, for an electric wheelchair for 2 year-old Alex Eavis - featured in the Bridgwater Mercury.
  Starbucks has agreed for branches to act as collection points, but I'm not sure how widespread that would be (local or national?).
• 50p per black bag full. That's an awful lot of tops to buy a wheelchair.
  I can only assume that the recycling company i sdoing it for the PR value OR because, with the tops removed, the bottles are easier to crush. Once crushed, the landfill would be smaller.
  Who has the job for checking the tops for the number and triangle? Must take the best part of a day and, even on minimum wage, would make the task unworkable.
  I could be wrong but I stil believe that recycling plastic bottle tops and plastic bottles for that matter, is more environmentally damaging than landfill.
  GG
• While plastics generally still have to be sorted by eye for recycling which is, as you say, expensive and seriously reduces how economical it is to recycle them, however, some bottles can be identified much more quickly by eye without reference to the number codes simply because bottles of that type are always made from the same type of plastic, i.e. milk bottles are HDPE, pop bottles are PET. Those are the two most widely recycled types of plastic because they are most economically viable to recycle. They are also more economically viable for recycling because they are less likely to be coloured and even when pop bottles are coloured it is normally in a standard range of colours reflecting the colours found in glass bottles, compared to ,say, shampoo and lotion bottles which are normally HDPE or PP and come in a huge variety of colours and shades. There is work underway on automating the sorting of plastic bottles for recycling and thus increasing the range of plastics which are viable for recycling.
• Despite many posts I have found on the Internet I have always managed to find charities that have been collecting the plastic bottle tops. I also used to send them to Naomi House, and then The Rose Road !!!. As Rose Road have now finished their appeal, I found The Cat and Rabbit Rescue centre in Chichester that are collecting now.
  As many (negative!) posts state in the net, these charities do need to collect an awful lot to gain the Ј, however, surely if everyone collected and sent them, they would add pretty quickly. I know how many we collect from our office with the amount of tea we drink!
  So let's be positive and help these charities out. It's not a hoax, or an urban myth as I have been doing this for 2 years now.
• Wish everyone in Gloucester knew this as with the recent flood & bottled water system, thousands upon thousands will have been binned.
  We were only told to hold onto the bottles for recycling ( something which I actively do already ).
• The recycling companies will pay about 2.5p per pound for bottle caps. If you can figure out how to make money for a charity at that rate (accounting for transport and storage costs) you are not only a MSE but a miracle worker.
• At GHS Recycling in Portsmouth we run a scheme where we will take any amount of milk bottle tops and keep this on file and let you know every 2 months how your total is mounting up. We pay Ј25 for every 500 kgs on a pro rata basis (minimum payout is on 500 kilos)
  At present we have 30 groups across the south of England who are collecting for 16 different charities.
  It is a slow process BUT it is another way of being greener and it is something for nothing!!
  www.ghsrecyclingltd.co.uk
  02392 670399
• What about collecting other items for a local charity, stamps, foreign coins etc? I've recently become elected onto the committee of my DS's playgroup and want to go to the first meeting with a few fundraising ideas.
  I've read that there's a company that collects foreign coins - I just need to work out if it will be worthwhile collecting those because we might not collect the full 10kg to be eligible for free collection and will have to pay the postage.
• The Stoneham Centre and the League of Friends, both of Moorgreen Hospital, West End, Southampton are collecting bottle tops to raise funds. We would welcome as many as we can get. Thanks
• There are places out there that will buy recyclable materials. Aluminium drinks cans can fetch Ј800 per ton. Bean cans Ј180 per ton (and other steel cans/tins)
  Ok, a ton of coke cans is (approx) 60,000 but if you had a local charity/good cause, with pubs and clubs donating, it might be easier than you think.
  There are also places that buy paper, plastics, metals, glass, cardboard. The problems finding them and then the storing/arranging delivery/uplift.
  www.letsrecycle.com and click on prices
• Our school uses GHS Recycling in Portsmouth to recycle plastic milk bottle tops. They can be contacted at www.ghsrecyclingltd.co.uk. There are now several collection points at schools/charities around the country if you aren't in that area. I think that the only tops that can be recycled are the milk bottle tops, not squash bottles etc. You can nominate a charity to receive the money from your tops or they donate it to a local charity that they support. They even produce a newsletter called Bottle Top News which lists collection sites!
• Hello All - We are in the process of setting up a bottle top recycling scheme in Devon to collect plastic milk bottle tops which will be recycled into new products for the home and garden. We will be making donations to a nominated charity per 500kg collected, the charity is to be confirmed shortly. At present we will only be able to collect plastic milk bottle tops as these are all made of HDPE, we hope that in the future we may be able to take other types of tops too. If you have collected tops and are looking for somewhere to take them let us know and we will see if we can help. We will have a website up and running soon with all the details.
  topsyrecycling@btconnect.com
• Evening all,
  Have been saving milk carton tops to raise money for a wheelchair for a disabled child. They now have achieved target which is amazing. People keep giving them to me and I have 3 sackfulls!!! Is there anyone who could make use of these towards a worthy cause?? I'm in West/South Yorkshire so obviously somewhere not too far would be great. The price to post further afield would outweigh any gain.
  Regards
  Rebecca x
• I'm going to merge you into our older thread about this. If the scheme in Portsmouth is still running that might be your answer ...