Milk Bottle Tops (Plastic) in Brighton

Milk bottle tops can be recycled locally here in Brighton & Hove. The council will accept the lids if you push them inside the bottle after washing it. Otherweise you can collect them for the Green Centre who recycle them for charity. If you live outside Brighton & Hove please contact us before starting a collection.

WE COLLECT LIDS WHICH ARE MADE FROM HDPE (2) AND LDPE (4). THESE FALL IN TO 2 CATEGORIES;

1. MILK BOTTLE LIDS - All milk bottle lids are made from either HDPE (2) or LDPE (4) - there are many different styles and different colours which can be misleading however we can accept them all; green, red and blue.

Please remove all stickers from the top and any tabs from the inside of the lid as these materials can contaminate the load. This is very important. Please see the photographs below.

     Bottle 6 Bottle 4 Bottle 3

        No stickers please                 No tabs please              No inserts please 

 

2. OTHER LIDS MADE FROM HDPE (2) & LDPE (4) - If you want to collect other lids you must ensure that they display the recycling sign (the triangle) as well as either the number 2 (02), or the number 4 (04).  This signifies the kind of plastic they are made of.  These details will be displayed on the inside of the lid. Please see the photograph below. If they do not display these details they cannot be recycled through our scheme.

 

                  Bottle 1        Bottle 2,

 

WHERE CAN YOU DROP OFF YOUR BOTTLE TOPS?

This scheme is run by the Green Centre who are currently @ The Open Market - Thursdays between 9am and 5pm. 

 

What happens to the bottle tops - They are picked up from the centre by a company called GHS Recycling who are based in Portsmouth. They are then fed into a large machine called the "Dragon" which breaks the tops down into small granules. These are then sold on to other companies who used them to make new plastic products including; ar parts, buckets, wheelie bins, kitchen utensils, plastic tubes, plastic garden furniture, plastic toys and black bin bags. We receive a small amount of money per tonne which we donate to Lupus Brighton and Hove and  Lupus UK.

Some Stats - Nationally the UK consumes around 180 million pints of milk a week of which at least two thirds are sold in plastic bottles.  The plastic milk bottles are recycled by most local authorities but not always the tops.  

Weight -Assuming an average weight of 1g per milk bottle top, there are 1million tops in 1 metric tonne. We have received 9,500,000 tops at the Green Centre which is 9.5 metric tonnes.

Distance - The diameter of a milk bottle top is roughly 4cms. Laid side by side the 9,500,000 tops we have received would cover a distance of 38,000,000 cms or 380kms or 236 miles. That would stretch from the Green Centre in BRIGHTON to DONCASTER which is 234 miles from the Green Centre.  (40,234 tops per mile).

Area- The area of a bottle top is 12.56 sq cms. The area of 9,500,000 bottle tops is 119,320,000 sq cms or 11,932 sq metres. A regulation tennis court is 261 sq metres so laid out at Wimbledon we would fill 46 tennis courts.

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