Solution to win: Ukrainian volunteers recycle plastic bottle caps to purchase drones for army

Ukrainian volunteers from Odesa launched the Plastic Saves Lives initiative. It is aimed at recycling plastic bottle caps and directing funds to purchase UAVs for the Ukrainian army.

So far, the volunteers have sent an ambulance to Bakhmut, thanks to the campaign. They raised funds in a year. Currently, this vehicle is saving the lives of Ukrainian troops.

What is the problem?

In 9 months, we raised funds for the vehicle, which was sent to Bakhmut and it is already saving the lives of military personnel. The participants of the campaign said: "we need to continue, work, we are still raising money". We decided to set a new large-scale goal. We received a request from the military for a drone, that's why we are rasing funds for it at the moment," explained Vladyslav Mykhaylenko, coordinator of the Plastic Saves Lives project.

What is the solution?

The Plastic Saves Lives campaign was organized to collect funds for the purchase of an unmanned aerial vehicle for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

How does it work?

Sorting caps by color increases the cost of plastic by 3 times. After the plastic has been distributed, it is sent for recycling, where volunteers can receive funds that will be spent on a drone for the military.

Volunteers wash them and hand them over to partners from the City of the Future center.

There are a lot of caps, today we are going through 4 boxes, here, one, two, third, here is the fourth for the girls. The sorting is done by separation into colors. Here, for example, I sort green, turquoise and lime green, this is a separate category for us. Blue, blue and white with transparent, yellow and golden, red is a separate category, said volunteer Inna.

Iryna Tverdohlibenko, the co-founder of the Odesa coffee shop, said that the establishment was one of the first to join the lid collection initiative.

People bring caps every day, some bring already sorted ones. We put them in large bags, which we already keep in the hall, so that people who come for coffee can see it, can be inspired by such an example, said the co-founder.

We joined the initiative about a month ago, we talk about this on Instagram actively. People help us and here it is. In about 2-3 days, people helped us collect them in different colors, said Maksym Perfilov, an employee of the Odesa coffee shop.

Kamilla, a visitor, came to hand over plastic too. She said she plans to come here again.

It is important to recycle plastic, to improve the ecological condition of our country, and also because it is also a good way to send them for recycling and support our defenders in ways that our volunteers invent, she said.