19 November 2020
By Tom Collins
tom@TheCork.ie
The people of Crosshaven are being encouraged to recycle a variety of waste such as baby food pouches, confectionary packaging, water filters and dishwashing, cleaning and fragrance flexible packaging for the first time, saving it from landfill and raising funds for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) at the same time.
Local Crosshaven resident Claire Morgan has signed up to several free recycling programmes offered in Ireland by TerraCycle, the world leaders in the recycling of hard-to-recycle waste. This has enabled Claire to set up a public drop off location at McWilliam Sailmakers Ltd where local people can drop off their baby food pouches, confectionary packaging, water filters, dishwashing, cleaning and fragrance flexible packaging to be sent in for recycling. None of this waste can be included in local kerbside recycling collections so traditionally has ended up in landfill or been incinerated.
Claire Morgan, who set up and manages the public drop of location in Crosshaven explains: “I was looking for a way to reduce my packaging, and I found these great free programmes run by TerraCycle to recycle a whole host of waste which the local council recycling collections can’t accept. Anyone can sign up and collect waste at home for recycling. I decided to go one step further by setting up a public access drop off location at McWilliam Sailmakers Ltd where the local community can all drop off their baby food pouches, confectionary packaging, water filters, dishwashing, cleaning and fragrance flexible packaging”
The collected waste that Claire sends into TerraCycle is recycled by shredding, cleaning and turning it into a pellet format which can then be used by manufacturers to create new generic plastic products such as outdoor furniture, lumber and construction applications removing the need to extract new resources from the planet.
As well as benefitting the environment, this programme also helps raise funds for the local RNLI charity for each unit of waste collected, Claire receives TerraCycle points that can be redeemed as a monetary donation.
Claire concluded: “As a charity close to our hearts, we’ll donate the money to the RNLI so that they can continue their work saving lives at sea. This initiative is a great way to help both the environment and charity, so we encourage everyone in Crosshaven to drop off their waste for recycling to our public drop off location at between 8am and 5pm from Monday to Thursday and between 8am and 4pm on Friday and to help us spread awareness locally by telling their friends, families and colleagues.”
All funds raised go to the RNLI.
The public are able to drop off their baby food pouches, confectionary packaging, water filters, dishwashing, cleaning and fragrance flexible packaging at the collection box at McWilliam Sailmakers , The Mill, Hoddersfield, Crosshaven, Co. Cork. P43 EY26
