Charterhouse; the sweethearts of the bottle top recycling heap
Charterhouse's collection of bottle tops for recycling began in 2014, five years after the Sweethearts Foundation began its nationwide initiative.
It all started in 2014, when Charterhouse’s two Grade 7 Johannesburg Mini Councillors took a particular liking to the national bottle top recycling campaign run by the Sweethearts Foundation, and decided to begin an initiative of their own.
“They started the ‘Give it a top’ campaign at school and put cut down empty 2litre bottles in every classroom,” said Charterhouse’s Lynn Davis. The learners were then asked to collect and donate as many plastic bottle tops and bread packet tags as possible.
The campaign’s popularity skyrocketed and was quickly adopted at home by the children as well.
One of the school’s biggest collectors of bottle tops is Pam Koopal, who, instead of going straight to the Sweethearts Foundation, always insists on taking her collected tops to the school.
The momentum from 2014 has never been lost, as the school still collects bottle tops to this day and then donates them to the Johannesburg Mini Council (JMC) which sends them to the Sweethearts Foundation to be recycled.
The JMC became the first organisation to join the Sweethearts Foundation’s initiatives when they joined hands in 2013, becoming an honorary member in the process.
They have since continued to assist the Foundation to provide wheelchairs to less privileged people who might not otherwise be able to afford them.
If you’re wondering just how recycling bottle tops could possibly get someone a wheelchair, here’s how it works …
The bottle tops and bread tags are collected by various organisations and donated to the Sweethearts Foundation. The Foundation then sells them to recycling companies. The money they receive is then used to fund wheelchairs for those who need them most.
This may sound simple, but in fact, it’s not, as it takes 450kg of bottle tops to fund one wheelchair. Given that an average bottle top weighs about 5g, it takes just about 90 000 recycled bottle tops to fund just one wheelchair.
As of 7 May, the Sweethearts Foundation had collected 31,2 tons of bottle tops, and 5,9 tons of bread tags, and had donated 252 wheelchairs.
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