MEDIA: Fundraising for Next Generation Recycling

A Victorian Secondary College has teamed up with a local Not-For-Profit to fundraise for a student recycling initiative.

Castlemaine Secondary College and The Good Op Shop are working together to fundraise for machines that will shred plastic bottle lids, melt them down and turn them into a new product to sell.

This project needs to raise $15,000 to buy two machines for the local high school. 

The machines use exciting new technology that can make interesting products such as USBs, plastic sheets, pens and pots for plants from recycled bottle lids. 

Once a mould has been created, the shredded recycled plastic is poured in and shaped into a new product. This will help to keep more out of landfill and reduce the amount of plastic that is only single use.

CSC school council president Beth Mellick is working with The Good Op Shop to help students and staff set up a space in the school where the lids can be sorted, cleaned and prepared.

“It’s a terrific project that all year levels can participate in. Once we have the machines to start making products from the lids, the students will be able to get hands-on experience with re-purposing resources,” she told Midland Express.

“We want the students of Castlemaine Secondary College to learn about a circular economy by being a part of it and making enough money to create new moulds and new products,” the school wrote on their mycause event page.

“[The students] will also get to learn about product design, technology, marketing, and finances,” Beth Mellick said.

Students will begin collecting bottle lids in the new year. The team of students leading the project have also arranged multiple collection sites in the area, at The Good Op Shop, Castlemaine Secondary College, and the Mount Alexander Shire Council office.

The Good Op Shop co-director, Tiffany Inglis, said she was very excited to be working with the school.

"We'd love to see the school make products that the students can sell, and then use any profits they make to buy new product moulds to keep making more and more products, and as such, they've created a circular economy and kept more out of landfill," she said.

“We hope this project will inspire young people and their families to find ways to recycle other materials and tackle the problems we don’t yet know how to fix."

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