Upperlands woman raises thousands for charity by recycling 'unrecyclable' items

These are things that the local council won't accept and would otherwise end in landfill or incineration, or worse, could end up as litter.Vicky has signed up to a number of recycling programmes offered by TerraCycle and has set up a network of drop-off locations across Northern Ireland which enables residents to recycle "hard-to-recycle" itemsThe items collected include biscuit and snack wrappers, cheese packaging and Pringles tubes. These items are not included in council kerbside recycling collections so have traditionally been destined for landfill or incineration.Once dropped off at one of the group’s locations, the items are sent to TerraCycle, the world leader in recycling hard-to-recycle waste.For every item collected TerraCycle points are earned which are redeemed as monetary donations to Vicky’s chosen charity, Kicks Count.Northern Ireland residents can find their nearest drop-off point by visiting Recycle for KC Northern Ireland’s Facebook group and their locations are open to the public 24/7. Local residents are encouraged to bring their pre-sorted “unrecyclable” items to the location to be recycled and help boost the group’s fundraising efforts.Vicky said: “So far we’ve raised more than £14,000 for charity by sending this waste to TerraCycle. We donate the funds to Kicks Count who use the donations to raise awareness of baby movements to reduce the UK stillbirth and neonatal death rate. The Money is spent attending baby fairs and midwife conferences, providing posters, displays for hospitals and leaflets translated into various languages for mums to be.”The collected items are sent to TerraCycle and are recycled by shredding, cleaning and turning into plastic pellets which can then be used by manufacturers to create new generic plastic products, such as outdoor equipment – reducing the need to extract new resources from the planet.Vicky added: “We encourage everyone in the area to get involved and sort, save and bring the items we can recycle to our drop-off locations. It’s a great way to reduce the amount of waste you send to landfill, and it also helps raise funds for a great cause.”