An English woman has found her calling and recycled more than 2,000 pounds of trash after setting up a drop-off point in her garden shed for people to leave items that garbage men don’t collect.
Liz Pinfield-Wells built the DIY recycling center following the birth of her third child after she learned she couldn’t recycle his baby food pouches.
Along with the pouches, certain food packaging, and even toothbrushes were all excluded from her town’s curbside recycling service.
Inspired to take action she set up a drop-off point at the end of her driveway in the town of Dawley, Shropshire, and encouraged the public to leave their mixed recycled items.
Since starting her green project four years ago, Liz has recycled 2,600 pounds (1,200 kg) of trash split between 30 different categories of recyclable waste that’s not taken by trash collection and raised thousands for her local community in the process.
“Our family has always done what we can, where we can as a household to help reduce our carbon footprint and recycle as much as possible,” said Liz, adding that dozens of residents leave their trash in her shed.
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Every month, she sends off the trash in vacuum-packed bags to TerraCycle, a firm that shreds it into small plastic pellets to be made into other items such as watering cans and benches.
The weight of the junk is then converted into points for money which can be paid out twice a year to a charity or sports organization of her choice.
In the last three years, Liz has raised more than £1,000 which she has donated to her 14-year-old daughter Zoe’s gymnastic group to buy new equipment.
She has also donated a sum of the money to another local charity to buy woodchips for their community garden.
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Among the items commonly deposited in the shed are bread wax wraps, home hygiene packaging, plastic bread wrappers, cheese bags, pens, rubber gloves, printer ink, and used postage stamps, none of which are recycled via the town council.
“We take Pringles tubes too, and these items have metal and plastic in so they really shouldn’t be put in your [curbside] bin,” she said. “It can sometimes seem a little daunting knowing where to start with recycling but with every small step, it gets that little bit easier.”
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“I definitely think it has helped to raise awareness to my children about the need to recycle more too.”
Liz started a Facebook group for her eco-hub recycling shed, which now has more than 1,000 members.
WATCH Liz in action below…
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Way to go, Ms. Pinfield-Wells. May more trash become a treasure!