UK Resident Devises Recycling Scheme to Benefit Lifeboat Service

Three partners have formed a recycling partnership to raise money for U.K.’s Southport Lifeboat, an independent lifeboat rescue service.

 

Pat Howard, a Lancashire resident, came up with the plan to raise money for the voluntary service after her husband was rescued by the lifeboat service. He had become trapped waist-deep in rising water off the Southport coast.

 

When Howard subsequently visited the lifeboat house to thank the crew for saving her husband’s life, she discovered the basic conditions under which they operated, with no toilet or shower facilities.

 

Howard devised a grass-roots recycling-based fundraising scheme based on the recovery of plastic milk bottles from local schools, hospitals and other locations.

 

Also involved in the partnership is Farm XS, a franchise operation that helps farmers recycle their scrap plastic, and Cromwell Recycling, the resource recovery division of Cromwell Polythene.

 

Collected bottles are stored and baled by the authorized Farm XS franchisee for southwest Lancashire, Robert Pilkington, before being purchased and returned to the production cycle by Cromwell Recycling for reprocessing.

 

“We’ve been working with Cromwell Recycling for some time,” Pilkington says. “When we were first approached by Mrs. Howard she was recovering bottle tops. With our encouragement she switched to plastic bottles, which are easier to bale and which, naturally, weigh more and generate more funds. As someone who was already a keen recycler herself, Mrs. Howard was eager to ensure that the plastics recycler was an ethical company, with a clear sustainability strategy and we knew that Cromwell met these criteria.”

 

Commenting for Cromwell Recycling, director Mark Fuller says, “We already work with Farm XS and others to recover and recycle agricultural plastics, including silage wrap and sheeting, containers, fertilizer bags, seed bags, cardboard and so on. The plastic milk bottles can just as usefully and easily be used as feedstock in the re-manufacturing process.”