Published: September 02, 2008 07:36 pm         

Salon to take bottle caps

When hundreds of well-meaning West Virginians were duped into collecting pop bottle caps believing they would help provide chemotherapy or some other help for sick people, Amy Berner wished there was something she could do to make the most of the hoax.

Berner, communications director for the West Virginia American Cancer Society, fielded many phone calls from people hoping they could do something with the caps they’d collected. It wasn’t until she was leafing through a fashion magazine that she came up with an answer.

“It’s not raising money for anything, but it is recycling,” Berner said.

Aveda, a company known for its hair and skin care products and its commitment to earth-friendly packaging, wants the caps, Berner explained.

According to the company’s Web site, at http://aveda.aveda.com/aboutaveda/caps.asp, such plastic is used to make new lids and containers for their products.

“With the help of our network of salons and stores, in partnership with community schools, we are building a new recycling program for plastic bottle caps in which caps are collected at stores and schools and then sent by Aveda to our recycler where the material is recycled into new caps and containers,” the Web site states. “ ... Join the Recycle Caps with Aveda campaign. Bring your plastic caps into an Aveda Store and feel great knowing that they will be repurposed into new Aveda packaging and kept from entering our waterways and harming wildlife.”

Berner found one such salon in the area, Hair Studio & Day Spa, at 313 Locust Street, Princeton phone 304-425-7709. Plastic caps are being collected there and retrieved periodically by an Aveda representative.

And, indirectly, she added, it does do some good for cancer, as Aveda does donate a portion of proceeds from its Pink Ribbon Hand Relief to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

“At least we can recycle them,” Berner said. “If we can do any green thing with the plastic bottle caps, then something good can come out of all of this.”

— E-mail: bnaudrey@ register-herald.com