Make A Difference

Envision Hands – Recycling bottle caps to help children

‘Envision Hands’ is a community based not for profit organisation that focuses on supporting and assisting longer term job seekers, through the provision of quality Work for the Dole.

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‘Envision Hands’ is a project that collects plastic recyclable waste destined for landfills and turns it into filament for 3D printers. Once they have the filament, they 3D print all the components that make up a prosthetic hand or arm for a child in need.

Bottle caps are fully recyclable but unfortunately, they aren’t being recycled. They get sent to landfill, they fall through machinery, and in worst case scenarios, if attached to a bottle, they can explode and force expensive re packing issues. This overlooked waste product is almost entirely made from HDPE 2 (High Density Poly-Ethylene). After considerable experimentation ‘Envision Hands’ have successfully taken this plastic and extruded it to create functioning filament for 3D printers.

What sort of bottle caps do they need?

‘Envision Hands’ currently use all soft drink, water and milk bottle tops, including those from long life containers. The tops should be numbered either No 2 or No 4 in the recycled triangle but not all are marked. They can use the unknown bottle caps for their Research & Development projects. They cannot process tops which have other plastic or metal attached – this includes water bottle tops which have pull up tops.  Any tops with other numbers like 5 or 7 are not required. They also ask that the caps are cleaned before they are donated and that no extra plastic, metal or other material is attached.

Montmorency Primary School is collecting bottle caps for Envision Hands. Please place your bottle cap donation in the bin located in the office.

Thank you so much for supporting Envision Hands.