For over a year, many residents have been washing and taking their plastic bottle tops to EnviroAbility to raise funds for the Guide Dogs for the Blind.

The Ross Gazette reported that a couple from Kings Caple, Mark and Angela Calvin, were collecting the plastic tops, and delivering them to Gloucester where they are forwarded to a recycling centre who paid for them.

However, the Calvins have moved away from the area and a volunteer for Guides Dogs for the Blind in Malvern and Ledbury, Debbie Pitts, who carries out collections in those areas, has been unable to find a volunteer to take on the task.She said that EnviroAbility have no facilities to store the large quantities of tops which are brought there, and no-one is able to take them to Gloucester. Therefore they have had to ask people to stop taking their tops to the charity’s base in Brookend Street from August 15th.

Unless a volunteer comes forward to collect the tops, and then deliver them to Gloucester, the service will have to stop.

The collections originally started when plastic milk bottle tops were not recycled by Herefordshire Council, which is why the Guide Dogs charity asked for them to be collected. The bottle tops can be converted into funds for the charity, as some polymer companies will buy them.

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