Bourne Toys is recycling milk bottles for Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance
When Melanie Barber asked for plastic waste to be dropped at her family's toy shop, she could hardly have imagined the response.
But thanks to people diligently saving plastic milk bottle tops through to crisp packets, she's now helping to raise hundreds of pounds for charities.
Earlier this month, one-and-a-half tonnes of plastic milk bottle tops and bottles that had been dropped off at Bourne Toys were taken for recycling with the help of Enva Plastic Recycling, also based in Bourne. Each tonne of plastic raises £250 for the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance charity.
Melanie said: "We've had lots of different groups and businesses supporting this by dropping off plastic for recycling, including the Co-op, Nationwide, Sophie Allport and Peterborough Hospital.
"We've also received donations from schools at Elsea Park, Morton, Baston, Langtoft and Witham-on-the-Hill, and the Building Blocks Kindergarten in Bourne. However, we would still like more people to get involved."
In addition to sending milk bottles for recycling for the air ambulance charity, Bourne Toys collects empty crisp packets, pet food pouches, biscuit and snack wrappers, Pringles tubes and toothpaste tubes.
Melanie collects about 8kg of crisp packets every fortnight and puts these and the rest of the packaging through terracycle schemes, raising about £100 for good causes.
Bourne Toys at Unit 8, Victor Way, Bourne, is open 9am to 3pm weekdays and 9am to midday on Saturdays.
