recycling plastic bottle caps

“Like cigarette butts, people toss aside bottle caps because they’re small and seem insignificant,” says Suzanne Frazer, co-founder of Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign Hawaii (B.E.A.C.H.).

B.E.A.C.H. launched a new campaign on Earth Day raising awareness of the impact plastic bottle caps have on marine life. Volunteers say plastic bottle caps are one of the top 10 items found during beach cleanups and are the second most-littered item after cigarette butts.

“In just three events since launching this new campaign we’ve collected more than 2,000 bottle caps,” says Frazer. “It’s going really well and those caps won’t end up in our landfills or harm marine life. It’s an ongoing problem. At one cleanup at Kokololio Beach in 2008, volunteers found 1,232 caps and lids.”

“This activity has brought to light what’s recyclable and what’s not,” says Frazer. “A lot of people with blue bins are not sure what to put in them. Many don’t even know why they’re asked to remove caps and lids from the bottles, and when they do, they don’t know what to do with them.”

Frazer recalls a recent incident at Hanauma Bay that highlights the confusion.

“I picked up 20 bottle caps in a just a few minutes then noticed a guy with a bag bulging with plastic bottles,” she recalls. “Turns out he was just throwing caps on the shoreline. People go through garbage cans and take recycled bottles and dropping bottle caps because they know they don’t get money for the caps.”

Frazer says caps are made from a different type of plastic from the bottles and have a different melting point. Any twist-on plastic cap or lid that is made of rigid polypropylene plastic (recycle symbol No. 5) is accepted for recycling, including caps from beverage, shampoo and food product bottles. However, pump, sprayers, plastic lids from margarine containers and any caps that are made of multi layers of plastic resins or metal are not accepted. “In just three events we found more than 3,000 caps, but about 1,000 of them could not be counted,” says Frazer. “It can get confusing, but we’re happy we’re off to a great start and pleased schools are asking how they can help.”