Our church is collecting the plastic tops from milk bottles; apparently there is a handicapped boy somewhere who has been promised a new motorised wheelchair if he can collect a ton (or tonne) of them.
This was one of those occasions when I would have like to be able to use the :dubious: smiley in real life - the story has all the markings of a hoax - nobody seems to know who the boy is, only that a FOAF knows all about it and so on.
Does anybody have to dope on this?
I do know that the Blue Peter foil milk-bottle-top appeal of the 70s/80s was a bit of a washout, as the idea had been conceived and announced before the validity of the bottle tops as a recyclable material had been analysed. In the end they got rid of several skips full of them for a paltry sum.
I can’t think that plastic bottle tops would be any more useful; in fact probably less so. And why just the tops? Why not other, more voluminous objects made from the same plastic?
Sounds like a mutated meme to me.
This sounds distinctly like a hoax to me, even if the people perpetuating this are acting in good faith.
I have a book of urban legends at home and variations of this one have been circulating for many years. Can’t find a link on-line to it though.
What do you think a wheelchair manufacturer is going to do with a load of bags full of discarded bottle tops?
These are the plastic screw tops(They feel to me as if they are polypropylene) from translucent polyethlyene milk bottles. AFAIK, polypropylene is quite easily recycled, but not terribly valuable.
However, as I said, it does have all the markings of a hoax; if it is genuine, I can only imagine that the company sponsoring it is making a loss on the transaction and doing so for the PR, rather than being particularly interested in the plastic.
For some clarity, from here:
I can think of better ways to try and help raise money for a new wheelchair, even if this was a valid appeal.
Maybe it is considered fun or even educational for the kids to collect something for a good cause, but this certainly doesn’t appear to be the best method of raising the money needed.
I realise this doesn’t actually help answer the question regarding this appeals validity though.
I think you’d have to locate the initial source of the appeal - ask your minister who first approached him with the idea.
This just in: Company holds crippled boy hostage, says no wheel chair unless it receives millions of small plastic bits.
:dubious:
I suggest collecting a ton of pennies instead. Unless I’ve been sloppy with the math, that’ll get you somewhere around $3000 in the states.
I intend to pursue this one back to the source; I will report back with my findings.
I’m betting the answer will include the word “email”. 
If you do a search on “bottle tops” and “wheelchair” in google you get quite a few hits. That’s not to say they’re not based on myths too.
In the thread Saving Pop Tabs, it was discussed how the Ronald McDonald House charity will take the tabs off the top of aluminum (or aluminium for you right-pondians) cans. Apparently, they finally gave up explaining to people how worthless they are, and now politely accept them, even though their value is extremely small. It’s quite similar to your charity.
I make it to be about $3628.74 for 2.6 g post-1982 pennies or $2926.41 for 3.1 g pre-1982 pennies. Yes, I was bored.
That should be 2.5 g post 1982 ones.
If it’s legit, it’s not from the recycling value, but a charitable promotion from a corporate sponsor. Cherchez The Corporation! THIS isn’t a hard thing to research even without the help of the SD. If you have the name of the underwriter who’s going to write the check, I’m sure their PR department will be glad to give you the details.
Some links to similar drives often debunked as useless:
http://www.snopes.com/business/redeem/pulltab.htm
http://www.snopes.com/business/redeem/pulltab2.htm
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020531.html
Canadian Girl Guides collect them, apparently for the Beatrice Milk Company: albertagirlguides.com
…but Beatrice doesn’t say ‘mum’ on their site: http://www.beatrice.ca/corporate/index.htm
I tend to agree with Futile Gesture:
This is exactly how it was presented; not that anyone hopes to benefit from the collection of the bottle tops but rather that the company sponsoring it wants as many people as possible (i.e. the bottle top collectors) to see its kind gesture.
In any case, my hunt is underway; stay tuned for more details; it is supposed to be a local boy (in Portsmouth IIRC) and if I cannot find anyone in the church who knows him first hand (there are supposed to be several), I think I will assume that it is a hoax.
Does it seem strange to anyone else that they would promise this gift contingent on the raising of a ton of trash? If it was in thier power to give the boy a wheelchair, why wouldn’t they just do it?
It reminds me of the aging rock star (Ozzy?) in Wayne’s World II who refused to go on stage until his roadie had found a thousand brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass…