To ask you to put aside some festive rubbish (for a good cause)?

[fuzzypicklehead]

You may remember me from last summer's mission to collect ring pulls from fizzy drinks cans. The Quality Street v. Roses thread reminded me that a large volume of MN'ers will have got in large quantities of sweet treats for the holiday season (and may also be enjoying their and feeling generous) Sooo... did you know that your chocolate feasting can do some environmental and social good?

I run an "upcycling" group for adults with SN called Re-Creations Project We teach the group to turn rubbish into cool stuff and sell it to earn money for fun activities (and cake). The materials we use most are Quality Street Wrappers, metal bottle caps and ring pulls from beer/fizzy drink cans. We need way more materials than we can consume ourselves, so we frequently have to enlist help from members of the public to share their rubbish with us. (We did ask Quality Street to help let people know they could recycle wrappers through us, but they said no )

So this Christmas, we're beginning a "Christmas Crap Competition" and asking people to wrap up their sweet wrappers, ring pulls and bottle caps and post them to us. They'll stay out of landfill, and it will make a group of people with learning disabilities really happy. Plus, whoever sends us the most (by 31st January) wins a handmade Quality Street wrapper bracelet.

The materials we use and addresses for posting/dropping are here

The postman had a couple of parcels this morning already! You guys work fast.

tinselahohoho The group has a shop on Etsy here and they sell the things they make to earn money for their "fun fund", and then they decide as a group how to spend it (which is a bit risky. In the past, I've had group members allocate a sum of money for cream pies, with which to bomb the group leaders.)

juniper Tissue paper lanterns are my favourite. I find myself choosing which brand of coffee to buy based on whether the shape of the jar will make a cool lantern.

I love those sweet wrapper bracelets! I made myself one out of starburst wrappers years ago, I want another one no

fuzzy I just bought some more tissue in nice bright colours so will be doing that later today or tomorrow.

Are bottle tops any use if they get a bit bent when you open the bottle?

Yep, we have to flatten the bottle caps to make the jewellery, so it won't matter if they start out bent.

Great - I will save beer bottle tops for you - do you need the same kinds of things all year, or is it seasonal?

Just posting so I can find this thread when we've finished our chocolates.

Will send when I've collected enough for a small parcel.
Will send ring pulls too. Actually we also have bottle tops.

It's mostly the same stuff all year, but we especially ask for Quality Street wrappers near Christmas since so many people buy or get them for Christmas.

Dp's just said he'll save ring pulls. Dss will too if they buy cans. I'll ask at our church if they have any or any wrappers.

Ooh I can send you loads of bottle tops ongoing over the year :) (but none atm as DH has flu so beer is not being drunk) No ring pulls - no cans here, all glass bottles. I shall start saving bottle tops and send them when I have just under 2kg, as 2kg is the cheapest parcel rate, so it may be a while! But it will happen, I never know what to do with the tops, as we get the deposit back on the bottles but the tops just go in the bin or with tins for recycling. I would love to send Quality street wrappers if I could buy Quality Street here :(

Marking place as I will start keeping things for you!

Giving this a little bump - my QS wrappers are going in the post today!

Oh no we didn't have QS this year! I have a box of Lindor to get through, would you want those wrappers?

Sure, Lindor works too!

EuroShagmore-- I think I got your parcel in the post this morning. I haven't counted yet, but I think you may be in the lead!

Hooray! Keep 'em coming!

Oh fab! I best get scoffing

I have some wrappers that I will be posting to you on Monday!

And an Anonymous, fat envelope full of roses wrappers from the postman this morning, with a Shakespeare sticky note! Thanks so much--you know who you are!

how do i find the nearest foodbank? we have some bits to donate. TA

Are thorntons moments wrappers any use? We still have some of those to eat... Lovely shiny wrappers too!

We've almost finished a tin of quality street so will send the wrappers on.

fuzzypicklehead envelope not as fat as we are eating that lot

Serant there's a map of foodbanks here

Thorntons moments wrappers work too--very nice and shiny.

By any chance, does anybody drink Bombay Sapphire or Grosovka Vodka and want to sell on their empties? We've just had a request from abroad from someone who wants us to make a light installation for them--but only with those brands.

Fuzzy - I am so annoyed with myself :(

I started saving ring pulls, got quite a few, but couldn't find your thread At All - so just before Christmas I threw them away, thinking it was a one off project and you'd be finished it by then!!

Do you have a list of all the things you collect?

Indeed, I do! Here you go:

Quality Street Wrappers
Ring Pulls
Metal Bottle Caps
Broken costume jewellery
incomplete puzzles and board games
broken candles/candle stubs
Babybel wax
broken crayons
bicycle chains and sprockets