After a decade of community recycling, we speak with That Foil Lady, Karen Nash, who has hung up her baler, to learn more about her extraordinary way of raising thousands for charity.

As any parent with a child who uses a charitable service can attest, one thing you want to do is give back. Some of us will run a half-marathon or hold a bake sale. Karen Nash of York took it to a whole new level. She founded Foil for Snappy and became a metal recycler!

In December 2012 Karen was recycling her own household foil at the supermarket car park recycling point, and the bin said ‘Raising money for community projects’ and she thought perhaps she could collect aluminium mince pie cases over Christmas as a novelty fundraiser for the Snappy Trust, a small charity, based in York, dedicated to maximising the personal development of children and young people with wide-ranging disabilities.

“I took my first carload to BMRA member, L. Clancey and Sons, in January 2013. We’d collected 23kg and raised a massive £9.70. What it lacked in funds, it more than made up for in interest for The Snappy Trust and recycling aluminium foil, which City of York Council (CYC)
didn’t do. I carried on saving foil and set up collection points at venues I visited regularly along with taking donations from friends of Snappy.”

A growing venture
By 2017 Karen had 16 indoor collection points accepting aluminium foil, drink cans and household cables. She was encouraged by her local councillor to apply for a CYC Community Recycling Grant. This brought Karen’s work to the attention of CYC Waste Services who asked if she would be interested in taking over the foil collection points of the York Area Group for North Yorkshire Moors Railway, who were retiring after 30 years. 

So, in December 2017 she inherited four car park collection bins and a baler. She was also put in touch with the Aluminium
Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro), a not-for-profit organisation that represents the aluminium industry. With support from Alupro, who organised funding for new car park collection bins, Karen’s operation expanded and by the time it was closed in December 2022 she
had 17 car park collection bins, two HWRC sites and over 50 indoor community venue collection points.

“Thankfully by this time all the indoor collections points fed into the car park bins and I had recruited a small team of volunteers to help empty the big bins and bring the recycling to me. Having said that I was still responsible for over half of them myself.” 

A decisive moment 
During the COVID pandemic, the amount of recycling Karen was dealing with reached overwhelmingly unmanageable levels. “I was struggling to cope; my family life and my underlying health conditions were deteriorating. Foil for Snappy had become a burden that I was  resenting. The only way to carry on would be to get bigger which would require more volunteers, new premises, insurance etc. and this  meant that the recycling would no longer be financially viable as a fundraiser.”

Knowing that her scrap metal dealers’ licence would run out in December 2022 and with the renewal needing to be paid for, this gave Karen a deadline to take all that she had achieved and find a suitable alternative to keep providing a community service. 

“The obvious solution was to persuade City of York Council to include aluminium foil in their household kerbside recycling and the back-up plan was to see how many of my collection points St Nicks would be able to take on. It took 8 months, but the council agreed and now foil is included in the kerbside collection which means every household can recycle all of their aluminium at home or give it to St Nicks, another very worthwhile charity in York.”

The future
Karen’s disabled son, who was a recipient of Snappy’s support, turned 18 last summer so his care requirements have increased. Karen still plans to help The Snappy Trust with fundraising, and she has thousands of bottle caps stored up to carry on with her famous mosaic creations. She is still actively encouraging recycling, working with local Cubs and Brownies and at the village school where she now works
as a MSA three days a week. When the weather improves, she also looks forward to getting her garden into shape, now it’s no longer where she does her metal recycling, though she expects it will be adorned with little bits of foil for many years to come.

Honorary Service to British Metals Recycling
BMRA is delighted to announce that Karen is the first honorary recipient of the Service to British Metals Recycling award. BMRA President, Susie Burrage OBE said: “Recycling has many champions, but few that puts so much time and effort into creating a whole process purely to raise money for charity. Karen should be recognised as a recycling hero like no other and we are proud that she is the first recipient of an
honorary Service to British Metal Recycling award.”

About Snappy
The Snappy Trust is a small charity, based in York, dedicated to maximising the personal development of children and young people with wide ranging disabilities. It provides a community, rich in resources, that meet the needs of the children and young people who attend Snappy. Alongside this, we offer opportunities for them to explore new activities and gain life skills that may not be easily accessed  elsewhere. Our wide mix of activities are designed to encourage personal growth and development. This community environment ensures that our children and young people can learn, develop and have fun with the same feeling and tone as their mainstream peers.
www.thesnappytrust.org

About St Nicks
St Nicks, a charity based in York, is a former landfill site which has been transformed into a thriving nature reserve and environment centre promoting sustainable living. Karen first met its Recycling Manager, Sam Taylor at the awards for Excellence in Recycling and Waste
Management in 2019. Along with the other recycling the St Nicks team do they are a collection point for several Terracycle schemes, so it was somewhere for me to pass on all the shiny plastic I regularly got in the foil bins. It already collected foil from its city centre recycling rounds so when I made the decision to close down they were the obvious choice to ask if they wanted my baling machine and if they
could take on any of the car park collection points.
https://stnicks.org.uk/