Home found for hundreds of plastic bottle caps (From York Press)

Home found for hundreds of plastic bottle caps

10:46am Tuesday 9th June 2009 in Sorted By Richard Catton, richard.catton@thepress.co.uk

A HUGE collection of plastic milk bottle tops, which threatened to spill over into the homes of two York women, has finally been taken away.

Dorothy Savage and Sheila Markwick are well known in Acomb for collecting the bottle tops, which they used to pass on for recycling to a care home in Scarborough.

The home then collected the money which was paid for the tops to provide equipment for residents.

However, following a change of manager, the home, which looks after people suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, stopped collecting the plastic tops, leaving the two women with more than 25 bin liners full of unwanted lids.

Now, after The Press highlighted the plight of the two friends, help has come from several fellow collectors.

Mrs Markwick said: “We had lots of phone calls. I had to actually put the answer machine on during meal times just so we could eat.

“People were calling from as far away as Sussex and Lincolnshire.”

The tops are now being collected for the Harrogate branch of St Michael’s Hospice.

Mrs Markwick said she has other contacts who are willing to take the bottle tops away for a good cause.

After managing to find a home a for the thousands of tops, the two women are already well on the way to filling another bin liner thanks to a steady flow of donations from their friends, neighbours and even complete strangers.

Mrs Markwick said: “I am still making my old bathtub a collection point.

“People are quite shocked when they come round because they only expect to find a carrier bag full of tops but they find bin liners full.

“It’s sometimes quite mysterious too – we just hear a car door and the next thing we know there is another bag of tops at the front gates.

“There is now a swing bin at the bottom of my drive.

“People can just drop them in there,” she said.