Middletown's Cans-4-A-Cause Celebrating 7 Years Of Donations To Community

MIDDLETOWN, CT — Middletown's Cans-4-A-Cause is celebrating its seventh anniversary of benefitting local causes.

Said Cans-4-A-Cause President Jeff Myjak, "For seven years, we have been collecting unwanted returnable bottles and cans, redeeming them and donating the proceeds to local programs. Programs include local food banks and soup kitchens, helping veterans with utility bills, local children's programs, including Warm the Children and victims of domestic abuse, though New Horizons."

Cans-4-A-Cause is a nonprofit (501c3) entity run by volunteers. To date, the organization has donated more than $150,000 back to the local community.

"While we have seen a drop off in donations since the state increased the deposits to 10 cents, we are still collecting a large number bottles and cans and we expect to give $20,000 back to the community this year," Myjak said. "While we are able to collect about $20,000 worth of bottles and cans, that is a drop in the bucket compared to the ones that don’t get redeemed."

Myjak said that, over the last fiscal year, more than $66 million worth of returnable bottles and cans did not get cashed in.

"People continue to throw them in the trash and recycling," he said. "The average person throws away 185 returnable bottles and cans each year."

Myjak said Cans-4-A-Cause was started in 2018 to educate Connecticut Residents and Businesses about the bottle deposits.

"Our goal is to take as of those containers that are not being returned for redemption, redeemed and the money put back into the community," he said. "If people are already redeeming them or giving them to the scouts or their local church or another program, we hope they will continue to do so. But if they are throwing them away (either into the trash or their recycling bin), we would like them to donate them to us."

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For more information on how to donate unwanted returnable bottles and cans to Cans-4-A-Cause, reach out to us at 860-788-7891 or email us at info@cans-4-a-cause.org.