Football club tackling fundraising and recycling at the same time

Ballivor Football Club are encouraging the local community to donate their plastic bottles and cans with the Return logo to raise funds for the coming season.

Following the roll out of the Deposit Return Scheme, the club kicked around the idea of collecting the returnable bottles of people in the village with the aim of using the deposit fees as funds to put into the club which caters to many young people in the area.

Robbie Judge, Secretary for Ballivor FC noted how, since the scheme launched a lot of people avoided the hassle of returning their drinks containers: "Some people just won't bother and will put them in their recycling bin, meaning the deposit fee is never returned.

"I even noticed myself doing it at the beginning," he added.

Since sharing this campaign, 'We Want Your Rubbish', on their Facebook page, Robbie said: "We've had a few people approaching us to donate their recyclables. There hasn't been as many as we'd hoped but it has only been shared two weeks.

"Starting from next month, we're looking at doing a monthly collection where we could stand in the village asking people to donate the containers. We would share this online to let people know about it. This way we'd also be targeting a different crowd that perhaps don't use Facebook therefore wouldn't be familiar with the campaign."

Speaking about the funds that would be raised Robbie said: "They would go towards equipment for the club like cones and footballs. We like to keep the registration fees down so the money made from this campaign would just benefit the clubs general running."

In addition to contributing to the fees of the club, this campaign also encourages the younger generation to recycle.

This fundraising idea really hit the target with local Cllr Aisling Dempsey: "Ballivor FC are already ahead of the game, and it's a great and easy way to support your local club as well as being an active way of learning to recycle for children."

Cllr Dempsey had approached Re-turn to see if they would consider supplying the machines to sports clubs, so that members could use it as a simple and sustainable way of fundraising but there are 'no immediate plans' to put this in place however they might possibly look at it in the future and that they would like to take another look at participation in the scheme so that local clubs could be included.

"Those that don't bother returning the containers are basically throwing money in the bin, you're better off sharing it with a local club," concluded Cllr Dempsey.