Plastic bottle tops - these cheeky little fellas sure can cause some confusion when it comes to how they can be disposed of responsibly. So much so, that our inbox is frequently inundated by questions on the subject on the daily! Below, we fill you in on some common questions and misconceptions to get you well on your way to sustainable disposable of this (extremely useful and valuable!) resource.

Why bottle caps can't be recycled through your home recycling bin

In many Australian councils, plastic bottle tops must be separated from bottles before being placed in the recycling bin. Bottle tops are too small to be accurately sorted at most Materials Recycling Facilities (MRFs), and if placed loose within your kerbside recycling bin, often end up contaminating the recycling mix or jamming the sorting machinery. Unfortunately, this has meant that up until recently, plastic bottle caps have had to be disposed of alongside general household waste, keeping the 'non-recyclable' material out of the recyclable waste stream.

Enter the Envision Hands program

In 2019, community charity initiative Envision Hands was created with the vision to turn discarded plastic bottle caps into mobility aids for children.

The first phase of the project (bottle cap collection) was hugely successful, with the collection of over 5,000,000 bottle caps in Victoria and another 10,000,000 collected interstate. 

However, towards the end of 2019, Envision put a call out to stop the flow of lids, and released the following statement to advise of complications in production and quality assurance. "Despite our best efforts, the children’s mobility aids that we have produced from recycled bottle caps have not met our internal quality standards. Regrettably, Phase Two of the project will cease, and we will no longer seek support for the Envision Hands project." 

A grassroots micro-recycling movement takes off in Australia

With Aussies around the country diligently collecting lids in the thousands, not long after we established Precious Plastic Melbourne we were contacted by Envision, and met with their founder Sean Teer to arrange the handover of around 300,000 lids, and arrange to redirect the never-ending flow of incoming plastic waste to our micro-recycling workshop in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. 

To divert this valuable resource from landfill, we're now repurposing lids into a range of useful products, such as soap dishes, picnic plates, jenga blocks and more.

How to donate your plastic lids

As the recycling process is extremely resource-intensive, we've shifted our focus to processing and recycling. For plastic donations, we now work directly with Lids4Kids - a nationwide project dedicated to saving plastic bottle lids from landfill, through redirection to micro-recyclers and manufacturers, such as Precious Plastic Melbourne! 

To find your local Lids4Kids group and closest drop-off point for lid donations, head to the Lids4Kids Facebook page.