In the English landlocked county, Leicestershire, across the region litter pickers have grouped to collect five million aluminium cans to build a helipad for the Leicester Royal Infirmary.
South Leicestershire litter womble Geoff Walker, from Braunstone, and the founder of the charity Helipads for Hospitals, John Nowell are leading the scheme.
The duo John and Geoff have joined hands to collect the cans, which will be crushed and melted down to form the actual helipad for the LRI. They are also aiming to eventually collect enough cans for one at the QMC in Nottingham too.
Geoff, who is now 69 years old, said: "In November 2019, we started to collect cans for the LRI and the QMC.”
"The problem is that the LRI currently doesn't have space for a helipad, but with all the work that is being done there, they will eventually.
"The helipad will allow the air ambulance to land directly at the hospital, and patients can be taken straight down into the emergency department."
Presently, the air ambulance lands at Nelson Mandela Park and patients are then shifted by ambulance to the LRI from there.
Geoff added: "When the helipad is built, patients will be landing on a massive amount of old recycled cans."
Geoff and Phil Marriott, of the Rotary Club in Shepshed, calculated that one helipad requires 80 tonnes of aluminium, which demands five million cans.
However, while this number might seem out of reach, Geoff said it's not as crazy as it sounds.
He said: "In the UK, there are 50 million cans thrown away every week. If we could collect all those, that would be enough for nine helipads - and we only need one.”
"I have already had about two and a half tonnes of can come through just my house, and we have people all over Leicestershire collecting them. We are well on the way."
“The cans are being stored in a huge storage container, which is roughly 45 feet long, and it has already been filled with crushed cans twice”, Geoff said.
John, a former RAF and Air Ambulance helicopter pilot, founded the hospital specifically to collect these cans to build the helipad.
"But most of all we thank all those Wombles and others who pick up unsightly and harmful litter, and all those environmentally-responsible consumers who let us have drinks cans towards our aim of saving lives and the environment."
"Helipads for Hospitals is growing very rapidly and we would love to hear from anyone who wants to help in any way, particularly in driving around their locality collecting aluminium."
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