Plastic Caps for Cancer

The collecting-junk-for-charity hoax must be at least a century old by now. It resurfaced most recently in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where members of a church had been collecting plastic bottle caps, thinking the caps would somehow help pay for chemotherapy treatment for a sick child.

One of the church members, when she learned the truth, had this to say about the hoax: "It's a form of terrorism because it disrupts your day-to-day life and prevents you from doing the things you want to accomplish."

That may be stretching the definition of terrorism just a little bit. Though I can understand why she's upset.

The article also noted some other examples of this hoax that have occurred within the past three years:
In 2008, several women in North East England were approached by a woman in a shopping center who told them she was collecting caps to help provide wheelchairs for disabled children. They collected thousands of caps over a period of months but were unable to reach the woman and had no idea where to send the bottle caps.
In 2008-09, the hoax hit West Virginia, where people collected thousands of caps for chemo treatments, only to find that the plastic was worthless.
Another story, designed to touch the hearts of America's military, was that bottle caps could be recycled for prosthetic limbs.
In 2010, American soldiers at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan had collected thousands and thousands of the caps when an investigation by Lt. Col. Thomas Rodrigues, the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing's judge advocate general, revealed the story was a hoax. He contacted the largest prosthetic limb manufacturer in the United States and learned that bottle caps could not be used in their products. He also found that no one on the base knew who the beneficiary was or what to do with the collected caps.

Urban Legends

Posted on Mon Sep 05, 2011


Comments

Yeah this one has been around for a looooong time.

Muddying the issue is that there actually ARE 'send tops in to help fight breast cancer'-type promotions out there nowadays, so it's easy to see how this old hoax can pop up again and again.
Posted by Robin Bobcat  on  Tue Sep 06, 2011  at  01:44 AM
The only "legit" thing like this I know of is for Pulling Tabs - like on beer and soda cans - because you can actually sell the aluminum for close to a dollar a pound.
Just shows that one needs to look into things like this before jumping on whole hog.
Posted by InsaniD  on  Tue Sep 06, 2011  at  08:23 AM
Actually InsaniD, there are a few such campaigns, but they're usually well-labelled. The most notable is where yogurt companies will have pink lids, to be collected and sent in to help Breast Cancer awareness/research. Occasionally pull tabs, too. Again, it's usually done as marketing, in hopes folks will buy the product for the warm fuzzies of 'donating' to the cause in question.
Posted by Robin Bobcat  on  Wed Sep 07, 2011  at  01:04 AM
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