YEAR 13 MONICA YIANNI WRITES EXCLUSIVELY FOR NEWSKNIGHT ABOUT HER CHARITY MISSION USING MILK BOTTLE TOP
Working in a coffee shop, I have to use a lot of milk. I would estimate that I have probably made well over a thousand coffees over the two years. About six weeks ago, a customer asked me if I saved the milk bottle tops. I was a bit confused… but she went on to tell me that you could do this for charity. I decided to research online. There were many bogus schemes, so I searched further to find a legitimate scheme.
I contacted the company to find out more about the scheme. This one works by trading bottle tops to companies that make them into products such as children’s toys, wheelie bins and buckets. Instead of paying their suppliers, they donate the equivalent cost of the plastic to your chosen charity. My chosen charity was the British Heart Foundation - my granddad suffered with heart problems and I cannot express how important the research is.
I started to collect at work, and asked other shops near where I work to join in. I also told my friends and family. Luckily my mum works in a school, my brother plays for a local football team and I am a unit helper at Brownies, so between us we managed to tell a lot of people. It then started to get a little crazy, posts were shared on community groups on Facebook, and we got large number of response. I started getting random people try to contact me through my personal Facebook, so instead of adding strangers to my Facebook profile, I created as specific milk top page to traffic inquiries.
Many local businesses have started to collect and there have even been some points set up for local people to drop them off. These are Tapps Garden Centre, Lee’s barbers and the Duck Lane Café. There are also collection points in Sandy and Hatfield. My school also got involved, so hopefully all the students will start collecting.
So far we have collected 2kg of tops, which doesn’t sound like many but think how light each one is
If you would like to start collecting, please do so! You can drop them to any of the local points, bring them to school if you are a student at KTS, or if you know me I will happily take them from you!
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