Buddy Benches made from recycled plastic bottle caps helping reduce anxiety and boost friendships in Canberra schools

When Charlie Woolstencroft volunteered to help bring a small Canberra charity's vision to life, he had no idea what he was getting himself into.

"I'm an electrician by trade, I've had 52 years of being an electrician. I'm not a furniture designer, I'm not a carpenter, this is beyond anything I've ever done before," he said.

But after months of hard work, and a few mistakes along the way, Mr Woolstencroft created the first of many fully recyclable and environmentally sustainable benches, made entirely from bottle caps.

The project is the brainchild of Tim Miller – the founder of charity Lids4Kids – who began collecting recycled bottle caps in 2019, initially to create plastic hands and arms for child amputees.

Recently, Mr Miller turned his mind to a new use for the plastic – seating for Canberra schools, known as Buddy Benches, designed to help students make friends or have a place to sit to reduce anxiety.

The process, which takes about 20 hours in total, starts with the melting of bottle lid granules in "lots and lots of different colours".

"I load the machine up, might be one colour, might be two colours, depending on what we decide to make," Mr Woolstencroft said.

"If it's just a slat, it'll take about 30 or so minutes. Then, after that, the work starts – trimming it all up and bolting it all together."

Each bench is made from around 15,000 plastic caps, varying from milk bottle lids, to water bottle lids and soft drink lids, which are all non-toxic.

The benches can be made completely smooth, but Mr Miller and Mr Woolstencroft decided to leave them textured.

"It's actually something tactile that the kids can feel, it takes away their anxiety, it's very much like a fidget-spinner, it calms them down," Mr Miller said.

"They can imagine, 'maybe this feels like snake skin, or crocodile skin', or 'that looks like a fossil in there'." 

The success of Mr Miller's original creative idea to recycle plastic milk bottles into limbs for children with disabilities took him by surprise in 2019, when it "went viral" and attracted thousands of messages.

Mr Miller said he found himself having to empty the donation bins – set up outside his Canberra home – three times a day.

So overwhelming was the response, that he had to ask for a halt of donations after the Melbourne-based manufacturer of the artificial limbs stopped taking the lids while it whittled down its stockpile.

But Mr Miller was determined to find a use for the small plastic lids, which cannot be recycled, and decide to manufacture them into seating for children in need instead.

Today, Lids4Kids still receive about 50,000 donated lids each week, and Mr Miller now plans to "install a bench in every single early childhood facility in Canberra".

This week, the first bench was delivered to Aranda Primary School, who themselves have been collecting lids for the charity since it was founded in 2019.

Deputy principal Lisa Kingham said the "children loved being involved in the process, they talk about it, they value it".

The bench, made in the Aranda Primary colours of black and red, has been placed in the library.

"We intend to use it as a kindness bench, and it'll be great for those kids when the playground gets a little busy, they can come inside and use that as a space to be calm," Ms Kingham said.

Mr Miller said he hoped Canberra schools would continue to collect lids, and eventually be able to manufacture their own benches or other "plasticwork" projects using the same process, incorporated as part of the STEM program.

"They can literally do this as part of their science program," he said.

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