December 8, 2011 / by admin / 3 Comments / Filed under Swop Shop
Here we all are in the cable car...no turning back Louise!
The 5th of December was National Volunteers Day and what an appropriate day for us to be taking our volunteers on a day out to Table Mountain! This group of hard working people, give their time and energy to the Recycle Swop Shop each week and we honestly could not run it without their help. So this was our way of treating them and making them feel special.
Big thank you to Table Mountain Cable Car Company for sponsoring our 20 volunteers the tickets to go up and down the mountain. Also a huge thank you to Kate at Melissa’s Food Shop Blouberg for the delicious sandwiches.
The day started out so sunny and bright and were singing in the car on our way to Cape Town. We sounded terrible & we got some strange looks from fellow drivers with this strange mix of Xhosa and English songs, but it was fun!
Once in the cable car we started to ascended into a mystical fairytale land…called a big wet cloud. This was strange & weird, but also quite enchanting in its own way. We ate our yummy sandwiches, told everyone how much we loved them and joined a guided tour where we learnt so many interesting facts about the fauna and flora. We met a Dassie, ate lots of Quality Streets and our calls to each other where lost in the mist. We were unable to experience the amazing panoramic view, but we created our own unique experience and enjoyed the day tremendously.
December 1, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
Jita and Jonathan working the strapping machine.
On Tuesday we used our new strapping machine donated by AviUmkhumbi Cape. Thank you so much for this useful machine. Rudi, who will be assisting us with transporting our cardboard to the recycling vender, donated this great little machine to us to strap the cardboard boxes into bundles. This will save time when loading the cardboard onto the trailer. Of course, in theory this is a brilliant idea, but we did face a few challenges. One of them being, our good old friend the wind! We will endeavour to refine the art of strapping & stacking.
Malaki... you can't hide in there!!!
It was really great to have our volunteer Kim back with her bright yellow washing up gloves and big smile!
Malaki was in charge of sorting the plastic with his team of 4 volunteers from the Du Noon community, they soon sorted the plastic in 16 huge sugar bags. To all our volunteers, great job! Lets hope the wind doesn’t blow on Monday when we go on our Volunteers environmental and cultural outing to Table Mountain.
We collected a total of 1485 kg of recycling.
Cardboard & Paper = 663 kg
Plastic = 479 kg
Glass = 294 kg
Tin = 49 kg
November 23, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
Thanks to Dale Martin for donating soup & pasta we were able to run specials this week and the ladies were singing and clapping with joy!
This week at the Recycle Swop Shop the ladies were very excited when we announced our special offers for the day and to top it all we introduced our Loyalty card. The loyalty card offers regular customers 4 free tokens when they visit 6 times!
Thank you Dale Martin, your donation allowed us to put together our specials. One of the specials was a box of So Easy and a tin for 6 tokens! 1 tin is usually 6 tokens. The ladies started singing and dancing, with big eager smiles on their faces!
The loyalty cards where accepted with approving nods and put in that special place….say no more! All in all a great day! The volunteers worked hard to sort the plastic, cardboard, tin & glass, but with the heavy duty gloves donated by Jaco from A to Z Recycling, we won’t have to keep changing the latex gloves. Thank you so much for caring about us! Thank you so much to our amazing team of volunteers, we couldn’t do this without the dedication and time given by you! They were also thrilled today after we announced our environmental and cultural end of year outing to Table Mountain in 2 weeks time. Hooray!
Paul from ProWorld also visited us and confirmed our first intern at the end of this month!
We collected a total of 1656 kg of recycling.
Cardboard & Paper = 875 kg
Plastic = 456 kg
Glass = 243 kg
Tin = 82 kg
November 18, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
Having a great time with Swop Shop Kids
We had a great time with the kids this Wednesday! The wind was blowing like crazy and it was our first time sorting the kids bags into different types of plastic and paper. There were bottles flying everywhere and a couple of time full bags of paper would blow off and we would have to go running after them!
The kids were having a great time. They thought chasing blowing bottles was a great game and they helped us a lot running after bottles and bags!
Also a HUGE thanks to all the amazing people who help us out every week! This week the Vonofakidis family arrived in force, with Louise and her two daughter Daniele and Galanis. Ben, Siffeny and Cindy dominated, and a great time was had by all!
Stats:
Total = 970 kgs
Cardboard = 741kgs
Plastic = 126kgs
Mixed = 52kgs
Glass = 45kgs
tin = 6kgs
November 18, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
Jita, one of our volunteers doing his new dancing moves "shuffling... down the cardbard"!!!
Lots of fun and music down at the Recycle Swop Shop on Tuesday!
Thank you, Life Changers Church for donating us a portable speaker to play uplifting and viby music. Now we’re all dancing, recycling, swapping, sorting…to the beat!
Jita, one of our volunteers was showing us how to do the Cardboard Shuffle! Now, what is this you ask?…The shuffle dance was originally a Malaysian tribal dance, but recently teenagers have adapted it as a street dance and at the Recycle Swop Shop we have the Cardboard Shuffle!
How do you Cardboard Shuffle?
The Cardboard Shuffle is three steps to two beats of music:
1. Stand on a large sugar bag filled with about 30 kgs of recyclable cardboard.
2. Step forward with your left foot.
& Quickly bring your right foot next to your left foot and step down
3. Quickly step forward with your left foot.
Oh and Jita makes it look so easy! Of course this also helps to compact the cardboard!
We collected a total of 1738 kgs of recycling.
Cardboard & Paper = 945 kg
Plastic = 373 kg
Glass = 378 kg
Tin = 42 kg
November 10, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
CTIA CSI event - Jonathan Shoots, Maria van der Westhuizen & Gareth Bain (CTIA)
All the beneficiary's
What an exciting day! Riaan, Jonathan, Patricia and myself were invited to the Presidents Hotel in Bantry Bay to receive, on behalf of Beyond Education, sponsorship from Cape Town International Airport.
Over a delicious lunch, we were one of eight beneficiary’s, to present our project. It was both inspiring and incredible to hear all the wonderful stories of how these organisations are changing lives in South Africa and also such a privilege to meet all those amazing teams of people running those organisations!
And so, between the presentations and courses Zusakhe’s Youth Group entertained us with gum boot dancing and singing! They were fabulous! What talent!
The Recycle Swop Shop was 1 of 4 projects, that were chosen from among 350 other organisations, to receive sponsorship from Cape Town International Airport.
Thank you ACSA for your donation and commitment to the Recycle Swop Shop.
November 9, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
Ladies from the community sorting the plastic
Yesterday we made another great step forward for the Recycle Swop Shop! We started sorting our recycling! We have contracts with 2 different recycling venders that pickup and pay us for our recycling!
Sorting 2 and a half tonnes of recycling is not for the faint hearted, but with a handful of enthusiastic volunteers we managed it all in a few hours. Our team of 3 ladies, headed up by A.J. (volunteer), sorted the 4 different types of plastic into big sugar bags. They worked extremely efficiently and the job was done by 1pm. All the plastic was loaded up and removed by 1.30pm. Well done, what a great team effort! The cardboard was then separated and packed into more huge sugar bags. The glass and tin was also separated and packed into drums.
This project has grown and developed so quickly we have hardly been able to keep up with the changes, but have kept true to our principles, one of those is to be a self sustainable Swop Shop. Today we marvel at the realisation of this and yes, our prayers have been answered!
November 1, 2011 / by admin / 2 Comments / Filed under Swop Shop
The catering ladies from Inkwenkwezi High School work hard & use all their talents to bring their recycling
For the 2 catering ladies from the Inkwenkwezi High School nothing is too much! They arrive just after lunch every Tuesday with their 5 bags of tins (the very large pilchard variety) and 6 bags of cardboard boxes (that the tins came in). These ladies drag their pungent bags of empty oily fish tins from the school next door to the Recycle Swop Shop, leaving a trail of pongy tomatoey liquid… “Ya gotta love them!”.
They do a balancing act with heavy bags of cardboard on their heads in the South Easter, quite a sight! And we cheer them on and offer them a chair after their hard work. They relax, we give them their tokens and we have a giggle at the smell and tell stories about how our cats are all going to love us when we get back home. We are growing and becoming more of a family of recyclers. Recognising regulars and greeting them with affection.
We are excited about bringing a new Loyalty card scheme next week. Keep posted to find out more. Huge Thank you to ZoneOne, Table View for sponsoring all the printing!
We had 68 ladies and 1 man today, that brought a total of 2819 kg of recycling.
Cardboard & Paper = 1422 kg
Plastic = 863 kg
Glass = 471 kg
Tin = 63 kg (Mostly thanks to our catering ladies!)
October 25, 2011 / by admin / 1 Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
Jessica a volunteer at the Recycle Swop Shop
This week Jessica went to her neighbour and asked her to help her. Jessica asked her neighbour to give her the bags of recycling her neighbour had collected. The neighbour saw that Jessica’s need were greater then hers and agreed!
Whow what an amazing community spirit the people of Du Noon have and what a kind neighbour! Jessica in turn bought 3 pair of trousers for her cousin!
Jessica says that Du Noon is getting cleaned up of recycling and its becoming harder to find large quantities of recycling. Some go to Kilarney Gardens and even as far as Table View to collect their recycling. Considering that 19% bring more then 20 bags of recycling, that shows great perseverance and commitment. I for one, take my hat off to them!!!
Here’s our stats from the Recycle Swop Shop Du Noon…
Cardboard & Paper = 1335 kg
Plastic = 808 kg
Glass = 690 kg
Tin = 83 kg
Grand Total = 2916 kg!
October 24, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
Volunteer serving soup
We have recently started making soup to feed those who come to the Recycle Swop Shop with a bit more than just a peanut butter roll.
Everyone has received this improvement with great excitement. A huge thanks to BLAAUWBERG Meat Wholesalers for supplying us with the meat in the form of meaty bones that allow us to make the delicious soup.
This Saturday I went to visit another great project happening in Du Noon that runs a soup kitchen. I joined in with a bunch of people young and old as they served soup and sandwiches to people in the community, and played and loved the kids of the area. This soup kitchen started up when a few friends decided that they wanted to get involved and love their community. It is so exciting to join with ordinary people like me and you who are wanting to get involved and give back to the people around them in need!
