Welcome to Women Volunteers, a GFWC-NC podcast where we talk with women across North Carolina, who volunteer their time in support of community improvement. We'll find out how they got started, how they manage these projects and the impact of their volunteer actions.
Welcome, I am here at the historic Weir Jordan house with the Greensboro Woman's Club. And I have two guests with me today who are going to share us their information or story on a pretty neat projects that they had around recycling corks. My guests today are Vickie Marcone and Pam Grimm. Pam is a member of the Greensboro Woman's Club and she cocchairs the Environment Community Service Project. She has been a member since 2005, and loves the opportunity to volunteer and give back to the community. She's been married for 50 years - that is so amazing - and has two children and three grandchildren. And you are retired. You are a professional in the financial services industry. And then to Vickie Marcone and Vickie is also a member of the Greensborough A Woman's Club and with Pam is the co-chair of the Environment Community Service Project. And you've been a member since 2006 is married with one son, two bonus kids and three grandchildren and you are very happily retired. Very awesome. So ladies, I mentioned that you guys had a cork recycling project. So tell me about this cork recycling project.
We agreed to co-chair the Environment, CSP last year. And as I was sitting in my kitchen, with my laptop, I'm looking around and researching trying to come up with new and unique ideas for us to discuss on our first committee Zoom meeting. And I looked around and I saw my wine cork holder. And I thought I need to empty that. It's overflowing. Surprisingly...
I've been collecting wine corks for years, my husband has asked me repeatedly why we were doing it. I had grand plans of a an art project or something creative. And anyone who knows me knows I'm not artsy. I'm not creative. I'm not any of that. So I started looking online and I discovered Cork Club and Cork Club is the conservation, sustainability arm of Widget Co, Widget Co makes a number of products, including wine corks, and discovered we could recycle ship our wine corks, to Cork Club to be recycled.
Oh, that's pretty cool.
It was very cool.
So how many corks did you have in your cork bowl?
I had over 900.
Oh, my goodness. Wow. Yeah. And that was collected over more than the last year right?
Oh, absolutely. She's been collecting them for years.
I did. Yes. I was surprised they require a minimum of 500 corks to ship per shipment. So I almost had enough for two shipments right.
So how many give us a sense of how much space 500 corks occupies?
Yeah, well, well, you had containers.
I had containers and save them in there just tucked back in.
So like multiple boxes that you ended up shipping at once kind of thing. Wow.
Yes.
That's that's an interesting I almost you ever do that count the jelly beans in a jar kind of contest or things like that. You can almost do that with the corks right?
After counting wine corks for over a year now. Yes. It's, it's fun.
So how did you find the cork recycling? You said, what's the name of it again, that you use
Cork Club
How did you find out about Cork Club? Just a Google search?
Just a Google search.
You had a problem? Yeah, wine corks that you weren't going to do anything with...
Not a thing with?
Well, it was going to be an easy project that no one else had done yet either. So we thought
And this was was this last year at the beginning of the pandemic. So your club wasn't meeting in person because we were all avoiding each other.
Correct.
And you were looking for something that could be done and people could still be active. Sure. Okay.
And they could collect them and then just drop them off at our porch or we can go pick them up from them and not really even have to see them.
So how did you organize your cork collection and your cork shipping
Well, to be honest with you, a whole lot of organization we're all stuck at home drinking wine. And I will admit that my wine consumption went up during. But, and not everyone wants to participate.Yeah, you know, you just put it out there and people took them either to Pam or brought them to me and we would lock them up, count them if they didn't, and ship them off.
So how many corks Have you collected so far? Do you know?
Since last September, we have shipped 673 pounds of course.
Wow. So you do it by pounds?
100 corks equals a pound.
Oh, wow. That's that's a lot of corks. So do you do now you started this as a project you could do because you couldn't get together. Now. I understand that your club women are getting together some right or are you not?
We didn't for a meeting. So we still on Zoom?
Okay, so you're still using? Brian. Okay. How big is your club?
There's 80. Members.
Oh, wow. Okay, so you have a lot of members in your club? A lot of people to get together?
Yeah.
As opposed to some of our smaller clubs that may have a handful of individuals. So it's a little bit a little bit easier. So. So what does Cork Club do with the corks,
They will collect? They will accept both synthetic and natural corks,
okay.
The synthetic ones, they make sure they are recycled. For every natural cork they receive, they will donate two cents per cork to go towards forest and ocean conservation.
Oh, well, that's pretty nice.
And so far they have, according to their website, they have made over $121,000 of donations.
Oh, wow.
Towards conservation notes.
That's pretty good amount. Yes. So how much you ship them? Do you just you know, box them up and use a postal service and pick cheapest rate.
Until recently. They would pay for the game shipping, free shipping. FedEx.
Oh, wow.
But obviously, this hass picked up. Besides offering free shipping. So yeah, I'm not sure how much longer this might go. We we aim to try and keep it up and running through this club year.
Okay. So do you collect the corks just from your club members, or do your club do collect them from other places or your club members collect them from other places,
We've had members who collect from restaurants and wineries. We our biggest contributor has been a repurpose store here in Greensboro called Reconsidered Goods.
I'm familiar with them.
They certainly keep some on hand to sell to craft people who come in, but we have gotten boxes and boxes corks from them.
So where's your shipping operation? Is it at one of your houses? Or do you do it here at the clubhouse?
No, our homes?
Right? You manage it through there?
Yeah, yeah.
So it doesn't cost much to ship them now that you're having to pay to ship them?
We I haven't shipped any yet that I had to pay for they just started. Okay. So that's just have to see what we have to do.
Yeah, I wouldn't think it'd be too terribly much. You know, when you think about like, you know, the bottom of the barrel shipping rate, right?
It?
Well, I don't know. i Yeah,
we haven't researched down to contact them and see if perhaps as a nonprofit, we can give us a discount, do some kind of a reduced rate and see how that works.
We do. My husband and I ship a lot of things. And oftentimes, if it's something it doesn't have to be there in time, you can get it for pretty much a lot less money, and then you've got your time to do that. So you did this because you had the wine corks you're looking for something to do with them and get them out of your house. I'm assuming
my husband's happy now
Clear up a little counterspace. Right, some of that stuff a little cupboard space. So they're recycled, they also make a charitable donation as part of what you send to them. Is there anything else about the process of recycling? Do you have any idea on how those corks are used in the recycling?
I think some of them they probably resale to crafters.
Okay.
They have noted on their website that maybe they have donated to someone who was trying to put a cork ceiling in their house.
Oh my goodness
...needed more.
Wow
work. So
Wow. I saw something somewhere about someone who does a cork floor their wine cellar ...like they taken all the corks and had to place them and had to cut them and even them out
be
interesting.
I've only made a wreath.
You know, I wonder how many people actually have corks at home. So I have a few corks in an orchid plant kind of thing around that then hangs in the, but, sometimes we hold on to corks. So I'll be like, Why are we holding on to that we just need to throw it in the trash is kind of my approach, right? But recycling, it would keep a lot of it obviously, from going into the landfills, right, which is a good thing. And if you don't live in the city for any you don't have to pay for your kind of trash pickup that can also alleviate if you're a heavy drinker, right. For a restaurant, that's a large quantity of material.
It is unfortunately I did ask the restaurant that I was at not too long ago, and I said, while I'm here, do you have any corks? She said, Well, we just throw them away. And so I think you'd have to almost tell them, you know, okay, start saving them, and then we'll come back and pick them up. But I don't think that was something they wanted to do. So.
So there's there's an opportunity there. Right.
But if you do go to a winery, they normally have them because I've gotten some from several wineries, they just had them on hand and gave me piles, you know, to take home, so
Wow. And there's some wineries in the area and kind of run through this whole section of North Carolina really?
Correct.
Now, do they have to be wine corks? Or can they be other corks?
Champagne, oh, or prosecco or
I have a lid to a broken jar that was made out of cork, the latest cork in my bag
As long as it's corkYeah, we think it would be fine. Yeah, it's fine.
It doesn't have to be a wine, it can be cork in some way and that can be used. That's pretty good.
Absolutely. That's pretty good.
So if you were to, you know, part of what we're doing here is we're going around and talking with club women about the projects that they're doing. And about the impact that has, y'all obviously, are putting something into recycling, as opposed to putting it into a landfill. So what are some recommendations you might make or ideas you might offer to other club women? Or people who may not be a member of a club that want to try and do something like this? What have you learned over this process that you might want to share with somebody else?
Well, I think there's a lot of things that can be collected that you're not aware of, and being Yeah, and then they can be shipped and recycled. We have two that we're actually going to do for our year this coming year that I had never even heard of or thought about before. So we're doing a crayon collection of broken crayons or crowns that the schools or the daycares or, you know, or families don't want any more, and they were just going to throw them away. We're collecting them all year. And we're going to save them, send them off, and then they make new crayons out of them and distribute them to the hospitals for the kids.
So what's this crayon collection? Who does this?
It's called the crayon initiative.
Okay,
They take these old broken crayons, they melt them down remanufacture them into new crayons. Those are then donated to children's hospitals across the country five here in North Carolina.
Wow.
To be used to children undergoing, like Minar Yeah,
well, that's cool.
And the wrappers are also donated to make firelogs.
Really
So you don't have to take the paper off.
Whatever broken hasn't been eaten by the child
You can send the whole thing?
I had o idea.
Yeah. So that was that's what we're doing.
That's pretty cool. Any tips on organizing? So I mean, you obviously did this in a very different approach than some clubs may be operating in today. But some might still be in the same situation where they're not meeting, you know, we have the Delta variant, which is, you know, creating some challenges for our expectation of who freedom right and then from the summer, so,
I think maybe being more forceful, or not forceful, but going out to the local restaurants and bars and making a more determined effort to ask them, will you save these for me? I will come back and get them periodically, if you will start doing that. I think that would probably have been one thing. We I don't feel like we needed todo that because they kept pouring in from Reconsidered Goods corks. And we it is still I've, I've got them in my garage now to start sorting and shipping and counting.
So where does reconsidered goods get them?
People donate them?
Yeah, it's a good thing because the people can take them to Reconsidered Goods, and then they can sell them or they give them to us.
Okay. Yeah,
It gets them out of their house to keep things out there.
Yeah, they partner with other businesses to, for example, your Amazon shipments, the bubble wrap, they will accept that and donate that to a local shipping company to reuse it for whatever they need. Last Christmas, round December, they put notice out that they would accept your old burned out Christmas lights, they donate that to an electric company who can strip it down and use the wiring in there.
I had no idea.
So they partner with other businesses to okay, what they don't, can't resell. They donate elsewhere.
That's all pretty good. So how long have you two been co chairs of the Environment Community Service Project or program? I'm sorry,
September 20.
So you've been doing this for a long time, right? The whole year, last year, and this year, eight more months, eight more months. So how do you learn about these projects? Is it you're just on the hunt forum? Or do you receive material from someone about it? I mean, where do you get your ideas? I mean, the crayon thing is really intriguing to.
That was a member of our committee who found that she was she's a retired school teacher, and she was looking for something for our committee to do and she found it. Awesome to run with it.
That's great. Sure.
And the wine corks. Well, you heard me, we just stumbled on you stumbled on?
Yeah, sometimes those are the best things, stumbling upon something, you know, as opposed to, you know, having to work hard to get at something. So, this is an easy project. I think obviously, you have to manage it. You have to you know, solicit the corks, find ways to get them you have to pack them up. You actually have to put them in a bubble wrap to ship. No, stick them in a box. They have to be in a bag?
No.
Awesome.
So you're not even sorted by natural and synthetic.
Oh, all commingled. corkage, there you go. That's awesome. That's really cool. Is there anything else you want to share about the cork project or any of your other products that you're looking at?
Nothing else about the cork project, we just been blown away by how it's taken off in the past year. So hope to maintain it through this coming year. But we'll see. We'll see. But we have a great committee, and they're full of wonderful ideas. And we're excited.
That's awesome. That's really cool. Well, thank you ladies, both for welcoming me to your clubhouse. It's been a long, long time since I've been in here. And it is really nice to pop by. And it was nice to talk with you both about your fun project that you were able to do even with distance from the rest of your club women, the drop in, you know, pickup and all of that a lot of us have used that over this past year. But thank you very much.
Thank you. We appreciate opportunity to share this.
Women volunteers is a podcast by Kelly Paul for GFWC-NC. If you're interested in learning more about the General Federation of women's clubs of North Carolina, and how you can join these amazing women and improving our communities. Please visit us on the web at gfwcnc.org
