Collect-a-Can has high hopes for the new year
25 January 2010

A fresh new year has arrived and as school children pick up their satchels and return to school, Collect-a-Can are picking up the pace to prepare for another bumper year of exciting competitions. This year Collect-a-Can hope to get even more schools across Southern Africa involved in their schools competitions and with exciting new initiatives on the horizon, things are looking promising indeed.

Collect-a-Can have been running their schools competitions for over 17 years. The primary objective of the schools competition is to sensitize youth on the important impact that recycling has on the environment and to demonstrate to them the economic benefits of recycling. To date more than a million children in schools throughout Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal, Western Cape, Free State, and the North West provinces, have been reached by this initiative. Close to 8 000 tons of used beverage cans have been recovered by the schools; the equivalent weight of approximately 1600 fully grown elephants.

The Collect-a-Can National Schools Competition, which runs from February to October each year, offers cash prizes to the schools that collect the most cans per month with additional prizes for the schools that collect the most cans through the entire year.

Schools that enter the National Schools Competition will automatically be entered into the Guinness World RecordsTM attempt competition in October. In 2007 Collect-a-Can set a world record for collecting the most used beverage cans in one month. In 2008 the record was maintained and last year, the organisation set a new record by collecting a whopping 2 122 238 cans in a month. This year Collect-a-Can will again call on schools nationwide to assist them in their attempt to break their record.

In the Can Craze Competition schools are required to collect a minimum of 300 cans and use them to build a construction of their own design. Prizes are awarded for the most creative structures and some of the top constructions will be showcased at Collect-a-Can’s annual School Awards Ceremony hosted around the country.  This competition will run from June to September.

The Artistic Expression Competition is a new competition that is being launched this year and will run from February to May. It encourages learners to interpret the theme “Used Beverage Cans, in perfect harmony with nature” through the creation of a drawing or painting. Great prizes will be up for grabs.

“None of these competitions would be possible were it not for the generous contributions of the organizations that sponsor the prizes we award to the schools,” says Mathabo Phomane, PR and Marketing Manager at Collect-a-Can. “In order to maintain our current stable of competitions and hopefully broaden our scope in the future we are always on the lookout for more sponsors. As such we would like to encourage any potential sponsors to come forward and offer their support.” Phomane continues.

With so much to look forward to in 2010 Collect-a-Can is calling on learners, parents, friends, businesses and members of the community to get their local schools involved and get collecting!

For more information on the Schools Competitions or on how to become a sponsor, please contact the Collect-a-Can head office on (011) 466 2939 or visit their website www.collectacan.co.za