10 Years of Recycling Rubbish for Charity
Hello I am Cheryl, you may not know my name but you might know me as ‘The Crazy Rainbow Recycling Lady’ in Bellfields and I have been collecting other peoples rubbish to raise funds for charity in Guildford for over 10 years.
I was inspired when I attended a fundraising event for a local pregnancy charity called Kicks Count, although it was ‘Count The Kicks’ back then. It is a small local charity with only a couple members of staff although it sends resources out nationally now.
The idea was to help reduce stillbirth rates by empowering parents-to-be, families and professionals with the knowledge of baby health during pregnancy by getting to know your normal patterns of baby movements and reporting any changes like reduced or increased movements. The funds raised went towards making and distributing leaflets and banners.
I was hooked and started collecting my own items such as biscuit wrappers which are hard to recycle. As I got into this new recycling through a company called Terracycle, I started asking friends and family to save their wrappers for me too. At events, cafes and groups I would ask everyone for their rubbish often introducing myself by saying, “Hello I’m Cheryl, don’t worry I only want your rubbish!” I got lots of strange looks in the beginning but gradually people would leave bags of recycling under our pushchair or on my doorstep. I signed up for every waste stream I could from crisp, popcorn and nut packets, cheese & bread product packaging to more recently toothbrushes, electric brush heads and floss boxes. I have signed up to 38 different streams over my 10 years as well as signposting people to other reuse, repurpose or recycling options and I also pass on other items like milk bottle tops in aid of Air Ambulance, bras (new or used) for Against Breast Cancer and small home ink cartridges for The Pyjama Fairies who make bespoke garments for children in hospital like my own daughter Jaime had.
I started a Facebook group on 21st September 2014 called CTK Recycling Guildford and I now have over 1100 members. Over the last few years lots more people are interested in being more green and the group exploded so this recycling option not only raises vital funds, over £5998 so far but we have also saved over 4804 kilograms of plastic from ending up in landfill. I have attended Burpham Wellfest for 4 years and have gone into nurseries and schools to give talks about the recycling.
This is how it works, I am signed up with Terracycle, large companies such as Warburtons, McVities, KP and many others pay for the plastic to be recycled and give a small incentive for charity. People drop their separated items to one of my hubs around Guildford then I collect, sort, box it and send it off to Terracycle where it gets weighed, stripped down and melted to make other products like garden furniture, playground matting or pellets to use in industry. Points are added to my Terracycle account and twice a year I redeem the points and then Kicks Count get paid in a month or so. It’s a win-win in my book and I have been fitting this around my family caring needs for the last 10 years as a way to give back.
I have a fantastic group of helpers that work very hard too. If you are interested why not check out my group (www.facebook.com/groups/CTKRecyclingGuildford) and see what you can save to help us reduce landfill plastics and raise funds to help save babies or you could join our sorting sessions and help us practically in boxing the items dropped off.
Happy recycling!
