A few collection bins were set up in offices, schools, community centres and churches around York. People were also invited to take their contributions directly to Snappy. 

 

Karen adds: "Everything I collected was taken to L Clancey & Sons at Murton, our local aluminium recycling centre. I obtained a charity waste transfer registration from the Environment Agency, which has been great because it allowed local businesses to join our fundraising scheme!"

 

Each year, the amount that Karen has collected has increased. By educating people to test their cans with fridge magnets, she has been able to significantly reduce the amount of steel cans being collected - they are unfortunately worth very little compared to the aluminium cans.

 

In 2015, Karen expanded her collection scheme to include household cables such as kettle leads, cables from broken appliances, headphones, obsolete computer cables and phone chargers. Again, these often end up in landfill which is a shame because they can be recycled. 

 

Karen's work didn't go unnoticed and in December 2016, the York Local Link Magazine featured an article about her work raising money for Snappy through recycling foil. This article was fantastic coverage for the incredible work she was doing, and also generated some wonderful publicity for our work at The Snappy Trust. 

 

In March 2017, with the collection scheme continuing to grow, Karen applied for a Community Recycling Grant from the City of York Council to enable her to buy a can crusher, indoor collection bins, sacks, gloves and posters. 

 

In July 2017, Karen was approached by the City of York Council Waste Services Department to see if she would be interested in taking on the aluminium bins of another charity - York Area Group for NYMR - that was unfortunately closing down. 

 

She says: "I met with their organisers a few times during the summer to see how they did things and agreed to take over when they closed. They recommended I contact Alupro, an industry funded, not-for-profit organisation representing the UK's aluminium packaging industry, which I did.

 

In September 2017, I only had 16 community recycling bins but Alupro kindly supplied me with new Every Can Counts (ECC) bins to replace the cardboard boxes we had in place. A notice went out on Snappy's social media and suddenly lots more people wanted a green Snappy collection bin!"

 

The York Press featured an article on the closure of the York Area Group aluminium foil collection after 30 years and promptly followed it up with an article on Foil for Snappy to let people know that they could still recycle their foil for charity. This again, offered fantastic exposure and sparked a lot of interest! 

 

Karen adds: "I formally took over the York Area Group for NYMR collection on 20th December 2017. By the time Chris Latham-Warde (Programme Manager for Alupro) visited me in January 2018, Foil for Snappy was operating at a whole new level, with three 24/7 access supermarket collection bins and 35 community collection bins! The sorting and bagging process had become a mini industry in my back garden with an aluminium baling machine and storage."

 

In March 2018, Karen launched @foilforsnappy on twitter to be able to give regular updates on how much money being raised for The Snappy Trust and to take advantage of the super graphics Alupro had to offer. This proved popular, especially the 'mystery item in the foil bin' type posts and quickly, her posts reached thousands of impressions!  

 

On the back of the increased awareness, Karen was able to install three more 24/7 public access collection bins in car parks. The uptake of these new bins has been a little slow, but they are providing a recycling facility that wasn't there before. 

 

Karen continues: "In September 2018, I was interviewed by That's TV York (Freeview Channel 8) and the video has had some great reach! Following this, I had a meeting with the City of York Council to see how they could help me. We have also been able to add a further public access collection bin so all areas of York are covered and an EEC bin has gone in at the council offices too! This takes the total to 7 large 24/7 access bins plus 45 more indoor community collection points. A massive increase in just 12 months which is amazing!!"

 

Karen now has a few volunteers who help with emptying the collection bins and sorting the donations but on a day-to-day basis, this is a solo operation: "Just me and my baler raising money for disabled children and young people in York."

 

We are grateful to have Karen's support and are incredibly proud of what she has been able to achieve!!