Saturday's Internet Edition, May 17, 2008.
|
“If they are recycling the [bottles and cans], it shouldn’t be too much to have something extra to collect wine corks,” Yemm said.
So far, he has only got three restaurants – Elizabeth’s Pizza, Ruby Tuesdays and Big Game Safari Steakhouse – to help with wine cork recycling. Yemm started asking businesses to recycle the corks in mid-February.
Yemm emphasized the wine cork recycling has nothing to do with the City of Thomasville, as it is merely a personal initiative.
The first-year councilman said the cork will be collected in Thomasville and will be shipped to Missouri-based Yemm & Hart Green Materials, a company owned by David Yemm’s cousin Stephen and his wife Debbie.
There are two ways a business or individual can get involved in the cause.
After a recycling bin is soon located at City Hall, participants can donate wine corks there. Residents can also visit yemmhart.com and register on the Web site. If a regular individual sends wine corks to Yemm & Hart, they can get $1.23 per pound. A non-profit organization can get $1.63 per pound from the company.
About 3,000 pounds have been collected nationwide by the company, with 200 pounds going toward experimentation and sample collection. Eventually, the corks will become tile products. Yemm & Hart will then begin selling the tiles, and the money collected from Thomasville will be contributed to local charities.
“It might not be a large amount of money, but something is better than nothing,” David Yemm said. “If you have $40 going to a charity, once a month or something like that, it is helping out a little bit.”
With the Yadkin Valley area being named as an official wine growing region, Yemm believes there is a strong interest in the alcoholic beverage in Davidson County.
“There are an abundance of wine corks around,” he said. “It is something that is growing. If you start collecting pennies, you would be amazed at how many pennies you would collect.”
Starting with Thomasville, Yemm hopes to start the wine cork recycling program in the Chair City and then contact local wineries in Davidson County.
“If you look at the contributions, there is one person in North Carolina that has donated 16 pounds to Yemm & Hart already,” he said. “I just want to see if we can put Thomasville as the number one contributor in North Carolina.”
For more information on wine cork recycling, visit yemmhart.com.
Staff Writer Darrick Ignasiak can be reached at 472-9500, ext. 231, or ignasiak@tvilletimes.com.