When Novus members and their friend Mai Tsumura collected in Leicester city centre on Saturday, October 5 2019, shoppers gave them £79.94 and four aluminium cans.
And the shoppers took away the message that Leicester Novus Rotary is supporting Helipads for Hospitals, which wants a million aluminium cans to become the raw material to build a helipad at Leicester Royal Infirmary for air ambulance helicopters.
Most of the money collected is earmarked to provide bins to encourage members of the public to donate cans so that littering is reduced, waste is reduced, raw materials are saved and lives can be saved, too.
More than 16 billion cans are sold in the UK each year. It takes the same amount of energy to make a can as it does to recycle 20. Recycling one can will save enough energy to power a TV for up to three hours.Aluminium cans can be recycled time and time again without losing quality.
These are the messages taken away by members of the public.
Quite a number of donors also gave advice and pledged to donate cans. A member of the South Leicestershire Litter Wombles suggested that they could help Novus in its quest for cans.
Among the people to donate cans — surprisingly few passers-by were drinking from cans, Most were using recyclable card cups or reusable plastic bottles — was schoolgirl Lucy crushed her can to save space. Lucy knows a bit about Rotary because she has won a Rotary Stars good citizenship award.
QR codes on our collecting buckets enabled shoppers with smartphones to immediately access our Facebook page and this website..
IF you would like to support Helipads for Hospitals (reg charity 1177218) provide a helipad so air ambulances can land onsite at Leicester Royal Infirmary and other hospitals, please click on the Contact Us tab at the top of this page to e-mail us your contact details so we can arrange to come and collect your donated aluminium (ie non-magnetic) cans.
Last edited: 21:20 on Sunday, October 6, 2019
