Blake Pittaway started collecting bottles to recycle; he used the money to buy just over 2 tonnes of dog food for an animal shelter… now he dreams of more.
Cape Town, South Africa – Blake Pittaway decided to dedicate his 18th birthday to the dogs at Fallen Angels Pet Rescue in Melkbosstrand. It has been a few months since his birthday, and he has continued his efforts. Blake started collecting 5l plastic bottles and taking them to a local recycling centre. In exchange, he got money back and started buying bags of dog food for the rescue centre.
Since he started in October 2018, he has done so much! They have registered his little organisation and an NPO and are waiting to start the PBO process which will enable Blake to give donors Tax Certificates.
“We have also donated 2025kg of dog food that is over 2 Tons! Once we donate 2.5 tons we will be taking on a second animal shelter. Our recycling drive as been a tremendous success with people dropping off plastic bottles as well as other plastics. We currently have 4 drop off points who then bring the bottles to me.”
As part of the drive to recycle more Blake has been heading up cleanups in areas where litter is very prominent. They then separate the rubbish from the recyclables and use the recycling to add to the bottles collected for dog food money.
“We have been doing rubbish clean ups where we sort all the waste and then recycle what can be recycled to earn money to buy the food for starving animals.”
Blake has innovated a way to make collecting the bottles more efficient. He has been meeting with potential sponsors to get his idea off the ground. He is working towards building a special recycling trailer.
“We realised that plastic bottles and containers in their normal state are to bulky to transport. So we have designed a recycling trailer that will be mobile and we can take with to process the materials on site of the clean up. On the the trailer it will have A granulating machine which shreds the plastics into little pellets. 5x240L bins to transport those pellets. And a generator to power it for when we do clean ups at the beach.”
“Unfortunately these are all very expensive and we are in the process of trying to find sponsors. But it would allow us to process more plastic clean up more areas and save the environment more so definitely worth it. We are also looking at getting a bakkie as we are delivering between 200 and 700kg of food at a time and thats not good for my little Hyundai Getz so far we have had no luck.”
Blake is now working on growing his organisation. He is studying a Bcom in Strategic Management at Varsity College to make sure that he does the best job possible to make Project18 sustainable. He hopes it becomes an organisation that everyone knows about just like the SPCA.
“My plan for Project18 is to grow it and make the brand into something everyone knows about for instance when people talk about the SPCA everyone knows who they are I want Project18 to be known by everyone as the go to charity in animal welfare.”
“Project18 is my passion and I hope that I will be able to grow it to the level where I will be able to run it full time.”
Blake has made such a big difference to just one shelter in only a few months so as he grows, we know he will be able to make a massive difference to so many animal shelters.
If you would like to support Blake, you can do so via his website here.
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