Good practice:

Plastic Caps for Future initiative - TOGETHER we can do more

On the one hand, few people know that one out of three prematurely born babies who spent time in a baby incubator develops vision problems. One of the prerequisites for this is the premature birth itself, unfortunately the other is the old or damaged baby incubator.
On the other hand, plastic pollution is gathering more and more in size every year, affecting not only humans’ life, but wild animals and all kind of eco-systems. It is estimated, that 380 million tones of plastic is produced worldwide each year.
The idea of Plastic caps for Future arises from these two concerns – plastic caps from all kind, color and origins are being collected by families, schools, administration, kindergartens, private companies, etc. Once every six months a big gathering event is being organized, where people bring all the plastic caps they have collected. The organizers transport them to a plastic recycling plant where they are being recycled.
Plastic caps for future foundation receives money for the submission of plastic caps for recycling (about 20 euro cents per kilo) and with the money baby incubators are being bought. They are being donated to the small municipality hospitals that unfortunately much too often lack vital life-saving technology like baby incubators.
Plastic caps for Future’s creators have set a mission: to provide an incubator for every small municipality hospital in need and in the same time to educate society how important and valuable recycling can be.

Plastic caps for future is a charity initiative. No funding and material resources are being invested for the realization so far. The initiative is driven by 2 people – Lazar Radkov and Martina Yordanova who act as volunteers and get no salaries for their work, but donating 100% of the money.

The results from the campaign are impressive – till April 2020 22 baby incubators are being bought with the funding by Plastic caps for future initiative. They were donated to small town’s hospitals around Bulgaria.
Through the initiative Plastic Caps for future more than 250 tons of plastic caps were recycled. The initiative did something more than donating – it excited quite many people that recycling can be really useful; therefore we do not have to waste resources!

The initiative Plastic caps for future is an excellent example of how every single person can contribute to the common welfare with almost no efforts – just by collecting plastic caps. Currently the initiative has slightly less than 100 000 followers, passionate in both donating and recycling. Almost every Bulgarian family collects caps at home. Collected caps can be seen in almost every administrative building, company, shop in the country.
The initiative is worth sharing with the international society because of these very positive aspects:
- It educates that donating is good;
- It learns that recycling is good;
- It requires no investments but time;
- It is very easily doable – practically everyone can do it.
As a result of the 5 past very successful campaigns, the creators of Plastic caps for future extend the scope of the initiative by collecting plastic bottles as well. After donating 22 baby incubators they have the intention to invest on other life-saving equipment.