I'm not usually a cause-head...those people make me INSANE and FRUSTRATED...but after seeing Oprah's Earth Day special so many weeks ago, my kids at school, whom I showed clips of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to, have been psycho about recycling....so here's just a little update about what we've been looking into.I don't know if you were unaware like we were, but plastic water bottle tops, and other twist on caps, cannot be recycled by most recycling plants! Not only that, but they can create a hazardous environment for the workers in the plants. They can cause the bottles to explode in the machines or they can jam them. I feel like I've been really trying to do my part and some of my part has now been negated...so sad. So make sure that you take the tops off of ANY bottle that you recycle...shampoo, laundry detergent, milk containers, etc. Look into your local recycling rules and whether or not they'll take the caps with your recycling or if you have to throw them in the regular trash. But either way, take them off your bottles!
Here's some information about bottle caps:
http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/plastic_lids.htm
My kids and I have been looking into things that we can do with our bottle caps. There are the obvious ones like use them to create a game or crafts, but how many games can you make out of the hundreds of caps we collect a week...and we have been collecting them. So one of my kids found a website from Aveda Haircare and they will collect your bottle caps and recycle them back into shampoo bottles! I'm enrolling my school for September, the Intermediate School already does it, and I'm so excited about it!
Here's the website just in case you or your place of work wants to get involved!
http://aveda.aveda.com/aboutaveda/caps.asp
And some fun ideas of what to do with them if you don't want to throw them away or get involved with Aveda:
