ISLAND LIFE

First it was breadtags — now Tasmanians are embarking on a massive recycling program to deal with another pesky plastic pollutant — bottle tops. National recycling program Lids4Kids takes the plastic lids from milk and cordial bottles and turns them into prosthetic limbs for children.

Volunteers introduced the program to Tasmania in the past couple of months, and it has already attracted a huge following.

Tasmanian co-ordinator Sally Lovell works fulltime as a family day carer from her Bridgewater home, but has been facilitating the collection of plastic lids in her spare time. She says she already has a small army of volunteers across the state — from children to the elderly — but would love to have more, particularly in Launceston and Devonport. She is also on the hunt for a local storage facility to house the collected lids, and a transport company which might be able to assist with freighting them interstate.

Businesses, schools, community groups and individuals can also register as collection points, or visit Facebook to find a collection point in their area. Only lids that are grade two or grade four plastic can be recycled as part of the program (you can find images of what’s accepted online).

Lovell says lids must be washed and completely air dried so they don’t go mouldy when stored in plastic bags or containers. They are then sorted by colour and transported to Werribee in Victoria, where they are turned into pellets which can be used in a 3D printer to create prosthetic limbs.

Between 500-750 lids are needed to create one prosthetic limb. So far, more than half a million lids have been collected across Australia by 10,000 volunteers, and Lids4Kids has recently been registered as a not-for-profit charity.

Other uses for the pellets are being investigated, including making playground equipment. It follows a Breadtags for Wheelchairs program that kicked off in Tasmania earlier this year, which involves selling bread tags to recycling companies to pay for wheelchairs.

“It’s one small step we can take to remove plastic from landfill,’’ Lovell says.

To find out more go to facebook.com/groups/ 455877415212930 or lids4kidstas.sally@gmail.com