Plastic Bottle Tops

dawnylou

Hi all,
Is anyone after plastic bottle tops at the moment like what you get on your milk and juice?
Someone from work requested we all save them as a girl living near her had been promised a new wheelchair if they could get a certain amount of tops and I managed to save quite a few but was on holiday when they collected them!

If anyone knows of a similar request please let me know rather than binning them all

LittleVoice

Did you ever hear that the new wheelchair was received?

I don't know of any commercial reason for recycling the tops for a profit so doubt whether there is any money in it for a charity arranging a collection. In fact, I don't know that the plastic is recyclable.

It would be really nice if someone could confirm that this is a genuine opportunity for charities to raise funds.

Looking_after_the_pennies_2

My local shopping centre had a collection point for plastic bottle tops for recycling (for a cancer charity I think). However, last week there was a notice on it saying that the collections are stopping this weekend, as the cost of transport to the recycling plant was making it no longer viable

luxor4t

I collected loads of these tops, but nobody seemed to want them so I put them into the plastic bank (with the plastic bottles) at the recycling centre rather than just bin them.

Savvy_Sue

The plastic bank at our local recycling point is very clear that they don't want the plastic lids ...

luxor4t

Our recycling plastic bank has a notice that asks users to remove the tops and add them separately as the crusher is not so efficient when the top is on.

oldtoolie

This should probably be a sticky on this forum as it comes up every few months. What I said last time:


The only charity I know of that does this is the Rose Road Association in Southampton see:

www.roseroad.org/?f=Fundraising/recycling.htm

I'm not sure how they raise money with this. There is a plastics recycler in Portsmouth that will pay £50 per TON for clean bottle caps delivered to their site.

One ton is about 200 black bin bags. About 2.5p per pound or 25p per bag.

So if a good wheel chair costs about £400, you would need 8 tons of bottle caps. Which is about the size of a house.

Think MSE before spending time and money moving bottle caps to Southampton.

Larry Boyd
Tools for Self Reliance
www.tfsr.org

---

Thanks to MSE for making TFSR one of your charities of the year

student_advisor

luxor4t wrote: »

I collected loads of these tops, but nobody seemed to want them so I put them into the plastic bank (with the plastic bottles) at the recycling centre rather than just bin them.

Bottle tops are a different grade of plastic to bottles and large amounts of tops in the recycling bank can mean that the entire batch is tipped to landfill as it can't be recycled.

We are also looking for somewhere to send them to from work. I seem to remember wheelchairs being mentioned before but have no idea where.

dawnylou

oldtoolie wrote: »

This should probably be a sticky on this forum as it comes up every few months. What I said last time:


The only charity I know of that does this is the Rose Road Association in Southampton see:

www.roseroad.org/?f=Fundraising/recycling.htm

I'm not sure how they raise money with this. There is a plastics recycler in Portsmouth that will pay £50 per TON for clean bottle caps delivered to their site.

One ton is about 200 black bin bags. About 2.5p per pound or 25p per bag.

So if a good wheel chair costs about £400, you would need 8 tons of bottle caps. Which is about the size of a house.

Think MSE before spending time and money moving bottle caps to Southampton.

Larry Boyd
Tools for Self Reliance
www.tfsr.org

---

Thanks to MSE for making TFSR one of your charities of the year

Thanks! I will post them off at the weekend!

lifeisgood

dawnylou wrote: »

Thanks! I will post them off at the weekend!

Please don't bother dawnylou.

If oldtoolie's figures are correct, the charity will receive 2.5p for one pound in weight (approx. 500 tops). This will cost you £1.52 2nd class post to send.:eek:

clarkey1000

Just found this thread as my mum used to collect lids for a friend but doesn't any more and I was hoping there was someone else to take them.

The Rose Road Charity is stopping collecting lids from September so that's no longer an option. I have found this link http://www.worldofworkshops.co.uk/robmilk.asp however unless you live in East Sussex it's not great for everyone. The company that they send the lids to in Portsmouth has a website but the Milk Bottle Tops page is still under construction so I'm not sure how you get lids direct to them! http://www.ghsrecyclingltd.co.uk/2403/frames.php

However, having looked into this a little more I noticed that my council will recycle plastic with 1, 2 or 3 inside the recycling symbol and so I can put milk bottle lids in with my normal recycling anyway (it's says 2 inside the lid) as long as I take it off the bottle to make sorting easier - can't believe I never realised this before! (Depends on your council though I spose)

Will still hang onto the lids with 4 written on them though as I'm used to collecting now and my folks live near Portsmouth so I'm bound to be able to get rid of them somehow without them needing to be landfilled.

Jo