Billions of plastic bottles and containers are sold each day, with most bottle caps ending up in the sea or washed up on beaches, posing a threat to the environment and sea creatures who mistakenly consume these caps.

St Margaret College, Middle School, is participating in this year’s plastic caps campaign “Nirriċiklaw għall-Istrina”. The plastic caps are  being collected and will be sent for recycling. In return, a donation will be given to the fundraising marathon L-Istrina.

St Margaret College, Middle School is collecting plastic caps in this colourful bin.

The more plastic caps collected, the greater the donation.

Plastic caps being collected are those belonging to water bottles, soft drinks, detergents and jerry cans. At the end of the campaign in December, GreenPak will divulge the total weight of plastic caps that the school would have collected.

The pastoral care team of the school first came up with this idea, and soon the school council, teachers and students also got involved.

During mentor class, some of the students together with teacher G. Borg Cini have been busy creating posters to promote this initiative and remind students and staff that: “All we need to do is collect plastic caps!” They have also colourfully decorated a bin in which the caps are collected.

Denise Muscat, one of the art teachers, constructed ‘pipes’ made from plastic bottles. The students drop the plastic caps through these pipes and these fall directly into the bin.

This idea was welcomed enthusiastically by the students and, so far, a large amount of caps has been collected.