Geraldton sends 300kg of bottle lids to Perth recycling project

More than 300kg of bottle lids collected by Geraldton residents have been delivered to a Perth recycling hub, where they will be turned into furniture, garden beds and other recycled products.

This is the first shipment of processed plastic bottle lids to leave Geraldton as part of theLids4Kids initiative aimed at reducing landfill.

Geraldton program co-ordinator Reg Whitley has partnered with not-for-profit Precious Plastic Perth to turn the recycled materials into equipment for community centres, schools and other groups.

St Francis Xavier Primary School has been collecting lids, with students last week visiting Mike Barker at Geraldton and Midwest E-Waste — where the lids are stored — to see how the plastic could be transformed.

Mr Whitley said it was encouraging to see young people participating in a project which was reducing waste and giving back to the community.

“It would be easy for these kids to collect these lids and give them straight to Mike, and he shred them and then he make his own products and sell them, but then the lids wouldn’t be going back into the community as a product,” he said.

Mr Whitley said one of the next goals for the program would be to set up a bottle-lid processing centre in Geraldton. Eppy’s Removals and Storage transported the packaged lids to Perth free.

There are more than 70 bottle lid collection points in Geraldton and the Mid West, with Geraldton and Midwest E-waste, Senses Café and St John of God Geraldton Hospital all public drop-off points.

Lids4Kids has in the past supported the now-finished Envision Hands project, which processed lids into 3D-printed mobility aids.