If you are one of the people who is used to recycling, surely you have been able to talk about recycling plastic plugs. All this started as an aid for all those children with mobility problems. This has made it one of the largest solidarity and environmental campaigns in the world.
In this article we are going to tell you about the recycling goals for plastic caps.
Plastic cap recycling campaign
Thousands and thousands of caps arrive at recycling plants with the sole objective of helping those who need it most. To recycle plastic caps, a campaign called "Plugs for a new life". It is a solidarity project and with environmental objectives that focus on the recycling of plastic caps and are intended to provide children who do not have sufficient resources for medical treatment. These treatments allow to alleviate some of the physical problems that they suffer and that cannot be obtained by other means.
An example of how it all started was in 2011 when Iker's mother, a boy from Bilbao with a rare disease, began to collect plastic caps to raise money and buy a special chair. This chair was a more sophisticated material that would consist of a brace or brace that allowed him to stand for a few hours a day. The disease he suffered from and which was rare because it was not well known. It is about spinal muscular atrophy. With this chair that allowed him to stand for a few hours a day helped him develop his vital organs normally.
Iker's mother used to collect plastic caps from all supermarkets, shops, bars, restaurants and even house to house. Thus he was trying to get the maximum number of plugs for his goal. The beauty of this story is that I was not alone in this feat. Both neighbors and their friends joined in this campaign to collect plastic caps from all over the area.
Benefits of recycling plastic caps
Thanks to the action of the SEUR foundation, it was possible to collect and transport a quantity of 20 tons of plastic caps that were taken to a recycler and to help this family. This is when this campaign was created with the collaboration of numerous companies and entities. Thanks to this agreement of the entities, it has been renewed and The EMT has recycled 4.375.000 caps or what is the same, 8.750 kilos of caps for all types of packaging and have prevented the emission of 13.125 kilos of CO2 into the atmosphere.
With all the plastic caps that have been collected, 1.750 euros have been contributed to the 247.012 euros obtained in the period 2015-2017. This money collected has allowed 44 boys and girls to receive medical treatments, there were orthopedics that are covered by the public health system.
The good thing about this campaign is that they have a double objective. On the one hand, we have the social objective in which they are able to help people who are on a low budget and who cannot acquire the necessary materials for their medical treatments. This also has a social consolidation benefit. That is, promoting help between people. When we are talking about helping other people a kind of empathy and need to do good is generated. Obviously all of these are social benefits.
On the other hand, we have the environmental benefit. We are talking about tons and tons of plastic caps that are recycled per year. We already know that plastic pollution It is one of the largest global pollution problems on a global scale. The problem with plastic pollution is that it can contaminate ecosystems and thus pass the pollutants into the food chain. With these plastic stopper recycling programs, we are preventing a large amount of these pollutants from being dumped into natural ecosystems and that can harm both flora, fauna and humans.
Successes of the campaign «Caps for a new life»
Since the campaign began, the SEUR foundation has collaborated with all the organizations involved up to now in the project and More than 139 children have been helped thanks to the recycling of 4.000 tons of plastic caps. To give us an idea of the volume that this waste occupies, with this amount of plastic caps we could get thirteen Olympic swimming pools completely.
Another of the successes of this campaign can be seen if we go to schools. We can find improvised containers to collect the plastic caps with this solidarity cause. There are many people who rethink whether picking up these earplugs can give these benefits. There are also many who have doubted the effectiveness of this. In order to remove the doubts of this campaign and its effectiveness, we are going to explain what are the benefits of recycling plastic caps:
- The material from which these caps are made is polyethylene. This polyethylene has high density so it is of good quality and has less toxicity.
- Recycling plastic caps is a fairly straightforward process. The good thing about these plugs is that they already arrive very clean and practically ready to be transformed. The process is quite uniform as is their composition.
- Another advantage is its transport and its treatment due to its smaller size. They are easy to store and lower intermediary costs.
Approximately they have a value of 200 euros per ton. One ton is about half a million plugs. This may seem like very little but you have to have a good scale about the campaign. The continuation of collecting these caps and that, if not collected, would be in the trash and wasted, is a pretty good price. It should also be noted that it is not an individual process. In order to recycle half a million plastic caps, many people have to participate in this campaign.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about the recycling of plastic caps.