YMCA is setting up a donation bin in the foyer of the canteen… we would more than appreciate all donations of plastic lids even if you don’t attend Afters, please feel free to drop your lids in the bin.

Lids for Kids helps disabled children

Don't throw away those plastic lids. They can be recycled to make prosthetic limbs for disabled children using 3D printing.

Next time you are planning to throw your bottle cap away, think twice as it can be used to make prosthetics for children using 3D technology.

Previously all those lids were going into landfill. Now people can take the lids off their bottles and donate them. The bottles can still go into their kerbside recycling bins.

The lids are sorted and then fed into a 3D printer to make the mobility aids.

The idea comes from Envision Hands, a not-for-profit organisation based at Wheelers Hill in Victoria, which shreds low and high density (Numbers 2 and 4) bottle lids and turns them into new prosthetic limbs using 3D printing.

Nicole and Brad Sutherland, who established Lids for Kids in Goulburn, collect the buckets of lids from various sites, which is then shipped to organiser Tim Miller in Canberra.

"We had set a target of 5,000 lids a week but having surpassed it we are reluctant to set a target because the more we collect the better. Both Brad and I are thankful for the support from Goulburn and surrounding community," Mrs Sutherland said.

Tim then transports the lids to Envision Hands' warehouse in Melbourne, where they are cleaned and organised into colours. Next, they are shredded and then fed through an extruder, which produces an ink-like filament.

That filament is then used in conjunction with 3D software to print the mobility aids.