First of all, let’s get this straight. Plastic bottle caps and lids do not go in your blue recycling bin on Oahu because they’re made from a different kind of plastic than the bottle.
From now until the end of March, however, there is somewhere you can take them: to a local school participating in the Kokua Hawai‘i Foundation’s first Hawai‘i School Bottle Cap Collection Challenge.
The rules are simple.
Each participating school collects plastic bottle caps from the community and turns them in by March 31. Schools will submit a collection report online and document the process with photos, videos and blogs.
The school that collects the most caps for recycling will win a special performance by musician and foundation co-founder Jack Johnson.
The challenge, which started Feb. 1, is open to all Hawaii schools, from preschools to high schools. More than 50 schools so far are participating, mostly from Oahu, but also from Kauai, Maui and the Big Island. To find a list, visit kokuahawaiifoundation.org/bottlecapchallenge.
New schools are still welcome to register.
The foundation partnered with Method and Preserve — two eco-minded consumer goods companies — to send the plastic caps to California, where they will be recycled into new products, including Method’s Ocean Plastic bottles and Preserve’s cutlery, plates and cups.
At Kokua’s beach cleanups during the year, volunteers collected more than 25,000 pounds of waste, including thousands of discarded plastic bottle caps. The bottle caps are the second most tallied item found during beach cleanups behind cigarette butts, the group said.
Can your cap be recycled?
The Kokua Hawai‘i Foundation has a collection guide. Look for the number 5 inside the triangular recycling symbol, which indicates a rigid plastic called polypropylene.
These usually include twist-on caps for shampoo, water, soda, milk and other beverage bottles, as well as vitamin and medicine cap lids, the flip-top caps on ketchup and mayonnaise, and peanut butter jar lids.
The recycling challenge is not accepting plastic pumps with metal springs, margarine tub lids or metal lids.
Founded by Jack and Kim Johnson in 2003, the Kokua Hawai‘i Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports environmental education in local schools and communities. Other programs include the 3R’s School Recycling program promoting on-campus recycling efforts and Plastic Free Hawai‘i, which aims to reduce Hawaii’s consumption of single-use plastics.
The top three schools in each of four categories — preschool, elementary, middle and high school — will receive a waste-free classroom celebration kit from Preserve and Method.
Winners will be announced on Earth Day, April 22.
ON THE NET:
» kokuahawaiifoundation.org/bottlecapchallenge
Nina Wu writes about environmental issues. Reach her at nwu@staradvertiser.com and follow her on Twitter @ecotraveler.
