A fundraiser and awareness raiser with environmental impact - and an inspiration to others

For the past 7 years, Andreas Mickler, dad of Emily (CLN3), has been collecting empty drink cans and bottles from students and staff at Trinity Grammar School in Sydney to raise funds for BDSRA Australia via the NSW Government’s Return and Earn Scheme.

At the same time, this initiative serves to raise awareness for Batten Disease and to make the rare disease more well-known in the school community. And, last but not least, each year almost 20,000 drink containers are prevented from ending up in land fill or incineration.

How does it work?
There are 26 clearly labelled, orange bins placed around the school campus and through repeated announcements, speeches and presentations, the large majority of the school community has over time become aware of their sole use for the collection of drink cans and bottles. By now, over 90% of what’s placed into these bins is actually what they are intended for. Some more contamination can be removed when the bins are emptied into large bin bags in which the bottles and cans are then transported to the Return and Earn centre.

Trinity has a Community Service co-curricular activity for students from Year 9, and a group of these boys help with Bottles for Battens. Every Friday afternoon, they do the rounds of the orange bins and empty them into bin liners and take those to an agreed collection area from where they are taken fortnightly by the School’s Property Services team to a Return and Earn centre.

A big thank you to the School for supporting the initiative by providing the special bins, cleaning the bins in the holidays and by taking over the transport of the bottles. And, of course, to the boys from the Community Service team, who are the front-line workers dealing with sticky and smelly bottles and cans . Their commitment is making a real difference!

Bottles4Battens - Return and Earn NSW

Christmas, New Year celebrations, and the school holidays are perfect opportunities to collect eligible plastic and glass bottles to support BDSRA Australia.

Share our unique barcode (below) with family and friends, as well as your local school or sporting groups, and encourage them to donate all—or even just some—of their container refunds to help our charity.

For easy access, feel free to screenshot or save the barcode to your phone!