Primary school children from across the UK have collected two tons of plastic bottle tops to be recycled by waste management company, MYGroup, through the firm’s ‘SchoolCycled’ programme.
SchoolCycled was launched in 2021 and is currently active in 25 UK primary schools. These schools have been provided with educational resources on recycling and sustainability, with pupils incentivised to recycle by the opportunity to earn furniture and fittings for their own school, which MYGroup manufactures from the processed plastic bottle tops.
MYGroup is a market leader in processing waste considered ‘unrecyclable’ and has invested in a series of advanced technological processes at its Hull facility, meaning the plastic bottle tops – normally destined for landfill or incineration, due to most local authorities lacking the facilities to process such items – can be completely recycled.
Like any plastic waste considered hard or impossible to recycle – such as packaging film or items of cosmetic and clinical waste – MYGroup processes the bottle tops into MYboard™, a material similar in consistency to plywood, which the company uses to manufacture furniture and fittings for the schools, including chairs, tables and desks, A-boards and mud kitchens. Pupils are able to choose products to be created for their school using ‘Earth Points’, based on the weight of bottle tops they have collected.
MYGroup has provided the schools taking part in SchoolCycled with a series of free online lesson plans covering the impact of plastic pollution and the importance of recycling and sustainability. The company has also provided recycling boxes for collection of the bottle tops and branded materials to promote and reinforce participation in the scheme, such as posters, certificates and stickers.
Liz Smith, Safeguarding, Well-Being & Parental Engagement Practitioner at Hull’s Bude Park Primary School, which originally helped pilot the scheme, said: ‘Bude Park Primary has got all the families and local community involved in collecting bottle tops and understanding the importance of recycling. We are proud to be involved in the scheme and have received a mud kitchen, table and chairs and bookcase from our Earth points.’
Steve Carrie, Director, MYGroup, said: ‘We are committed to educating the next generation about the importance of recycling and sustainability. Focusing on such a simple, but a nonetheless prevalent item of plastic waste as a bottle top encourages children to engage in the process of recycling at an early age, while the items we manufacture from the processed material demonstrate the circular economy in action.’
MYGroup is currently in talks to activate SchoolCycled in a further 30 schools and is keen to speak to potential sponsors to help expand the programme. The company currently funds the scheme entirely, with no cost to the schools involved.