How about some hoax-busting on the stories about collecting a child's weight in empty Walkers Crisps Packets to fund an operation and the one that is currently going round Britain like wildfare - a hoax about collecting a wheelchair's weight in plastic milk bottle tops or other plastic bottle tops to get someone a wheelchair?
I work at Naomi House, and I can confirm that we definitely collect milk bottle tops. However.... and this is a big however.... this is not the huge money spinner that people think it is. It's actually quite difficult to manage, but we do make a few quid out of this. The company we use to reprocess these is the only one in the country with the machinery, and he's based in Portsmouth. We make #60 per tonne, which is about 80 bin bags full, so not loads. I can always be contacted at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for further information. We actually made over #17k last year from recycling items, only #900 from the tops alone. Of course, we are very grateful for the support.
I am furious that people think this is a hoax. I am one of the "bigarchons" collecting plastic bottle tops in the UK for this charity: http://www.bouchonsdamour.com/bouchons.htm
It is a huge project in France and has made a significant difference to a lot of disabled kids. No there are probably no official collection points in the uk, apart from individuals like me who give their time, effort and garage space for this. I will transport all the tops collected to France with a friend who owns a small truck, probably this summer. The plastic in question is worth more per ton than other plastics, so it is important to collect them in great quantity. please those of you who are collecting but don't know what to do with them contact me here.
Sarah
in UK
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 | 08:52 AM
According to the recycling websites, Bouchons d'Amour weren't accepting British bottle tops. Whether they accept them or not doesn't change the fact that the chain letters/emails that say a dairy will buy a child's wheelchair if you collect enough milk bottle tops IS a hoax. The hoaxes make no mention of Bouchon's d'Amour - they all refer to British charities, dairies and companies.
Stephen Casey
in Brisbane, Australia
Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 | 11:19 PM
In the late 1970's a work friend of mine was collecting foil from inside cigarette packs to help a little girl from Canberra obtain (from memory)a guide dog. The dollar value of the collection was irrelevent it was the fact that the girl and her friends had to do something to earn it. The organisation required a certain task to be completed so as the child could earn it and not just be given it. This way you value something more if you earn it. What was collected was most likely thrown out.
Also, schools in Queensland can collect bottle tops from certain milk bottles and and the company that the caps came from will swap a set amount of caps for a new computer.
This way the children have to earn the computers by collecting the caps and the company involved sells more of it's product.
anonymous
in unkown
Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 | 05:26 AM
i think this is no scam it is a charitable cause that i have collected for
heather b
in south east
Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 | 06:42 AM
If u want my plastic bottle tops e-mail me. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Ro
in Derby
Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 | 03:22 AM
A few weeks ago I heard on the local radio of a charity collecting bottle tops - after hours and hours of research this forum has the most information I can find on the subject so I am forced to think that the hospital sack full of bottle tops is useless - the local radio station have not been able to gain any additional information from the caller who requested the bottle tops. As Derby is way too far to transport this quantity to Portsmouth I fear they are all going in the bin.
trayc
Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 | 02:53 AM
i too have several big binliners full of plastic bottle tops which where collected for a lady in cumbria whom i have on good word ( that of a tutor at a local college) that she did infact get a wheelchair the tutor had enlisted the help of loads of her students. someone must have more information?
maybe you can find out more from the site about the article it has about it.
Good luck!
Laura Hartland
in Teesside
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 | 04:43 AM
Calling Arielle Schnepp from in Dunfermline!
I've tried visiting the website with the link you have provided but, as I don't speak french, I am having trouble getting anymore details about collecting milk bottle tops.
I help schools in my local borough with recycling and am being driven insane by the same question, "can we recycle bottle tops for charity?" Please could you post some more information, or contact details for a location in England that I could use. PLEASE!!!!!!!!
Thanks
Jordan
in North Carolina
Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 | 04:50 AM
Hello,
my friend and I are collecting these pull tabs and we're not sure what to do with them. At first we were collecting them for are club but our club just thought they were cool and they were merley our monthly payment to be in the club. so we needed something to do with them. i over heard one of my friends saying something about giving them to a charity for cancer (not a wheelchair) and so i asked the club if we wanted to collect the pull tabs for the above reasons. well they said i needed to do more reserch on the matter before they wasted their time collecting the dumb things. so that is how i came to find this website. i love collecting the pull tabs but im not sure if there is any point. as i was googling the matter i not only found this site but this one which says that there is a charity that takes them but to me it sounds as if it dosen't do anything. [url=http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_077.html]http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_077.html[/url] so if you have an idea of what this article is talking about PLEASE tell me.
Kevin
in Ilford, Essex
Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 | 02:11 AM
I sent an e-mail today, 9th October 2006, to http://www.naomihouse.org.uk, the only charity I could find that was taking these plastic bottle tops.
Here is the reply -
Hi,
Thank you for your recent email and for supporting Naomi House.
Unfortunately we no longer collect milk bottle tops.
We are however still collecting used stamps, printer cartridges, old mobile phones and foreign currency.
Thank you once again for your support and I hope you can continue to help us with our other recycling projects.
Kind Regards
Michelle Williams
Fundraising Assistant
So there you have it. No one is collecting these tops. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Sorry, it IS a hoax. Simple arithmetic can tell you. £60 per tonne = 6000p; each top weighs 2 grams, so you need 500000 to make one tonne. 500000/6000 means that the charity makes 1p (yes, just one penny!) for every 80 tops. The cost of storage and transport far exceeds the value of the tops. Anybody collecting the tops and taking or sending them to the charity by car has spent far more on petrol than the tops are worth; the charity would be much better off if you just gave them the money, say 25p per mile, that you were going to spend taking them there, and just throw the tops away.
Stephen F Allen
in lincoln
Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 | 04:41 AM
where can I dispose of bottom tops collected in lincoln?
Susan
in staffs uk
Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 | 09:19 AM
Hi
I have heard all about this for sometime now and the BBC have reported on it on their OUCH! page on the web. Here they name a company in portsmouth that pays £50 per ton of tops. perhaps you could contact them
lisa
in portsmouth
Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 | 05:53 AM
GHS Recycling in Portsmouth, has accepted plastic (polyethylene) bottle tops from Naomi House Children's Hospice in Winchester for £50 - £60 per tonne. GHS Recycling granulates the plastic and sells it on to a reprocessor in the Midlands. Naomi House, aided by schools, aims to raise £8,000 (for fuel bills) through plastics recycling and have raised £4,000 in a year. In contrast, Smile Plastics in Shropshire was sceptical about the feasibility of bottle top collections as it takes 100,000 bottle tops to make a tonne; smaller quantities are uneconomical to reprocess. While Smile Plastics said they might be prepared to give smaller quantities a trial (e.g. 50 kilos) they would not be prepared to pay for it. Collectors should note that this is strictly on a weight basis and not in exchange for wheelchairs or any other mobility aid. A tonne = 100,000 bottle tops, which must be a single type of plastic. Most recycling companies will not work with smaller quantities. Some may not accept bottle tops at all. Make definite arrangements with a recycling company before collecting bottle tops and expect only moderate (if any) returns for your efforts.
charlie B
in Somerset
Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 | 08:03 AM
Hello all. A local paper has run the "bottle tops for a wheelchair" article and our office is looking at taking on the idea. Being one of the office old-goats, I did some digging. It's Christmas and not everybody is contactable, but there does seem to be some veracity, at the moment. I'll dig on and update ASAP.
(1) The paper is the Bridgwater Mercury and the article is dated 26 June 2006. search under "bottle tops"
(2) The recycling company is GH Services Recycling of Portsmouth (02392 670399) I emailed and left an answerphone message, no reply yet. they collect a range (ie not all types) of plastics. 3 tonnes minimum.
(3) Starbucks is mentioned as well - their customer care email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)) reply to me says "....I am not sure of whether the facts included in the article are true regarding which type of lid must be collected and how much they are worth. However, I believe the milk tops our stores use have been compatible for use in this particular programme"
OK - so all-in-all, by no means a racing certainty but I'm inclined -just- to think its a goer.
I don't think that anybody is "donating" a wheelchair in return for tops, it's more about if loads of people collect tops, then somebody will buy them and that cash is used to purchase a wheelchair. So earlier correspondence about the whole scale-economics of the deal come up again, and I do agree with them - instead of tops, if my office complex simply put in 50p each, that's most of £500 in a day, job done.
conversely, from experience getting people to let go of actual cash is harder and harder these days. If you can persuade people to give you something for free, that will be more successful. A handful of motivated individuals to manage the scheme could indeed make it work, basic economics aside. How big a fleet of cars would be needed to transport 3 tonnes of tops ?? Half a million tops to 1 tonne, say 10,000 tops in a bin liner, = 50 bin liners per tonne. ooh- er...
nicola bleeks
in stewartstown co.Tyrone Northern Ireland
Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 | 01:57 PM
My mum has a large number of bottle tops and she would like to give them away to someone who requires a wheelchair.