A bright idea from Stuart Lucas of Clarke Energy 14 years ago has helped raise £1,000 for Zoë’s Place children’s charity in Liverpool, by collecting and selling 200,000 waste copper rings.
Stuart works for Clarke Energy’s service business in Knowsley on the cylinder head remanufacturing line. The line is an important part to Clarke Energy’s service operation, by stripping down, reconditioning and reassembling cylinder heads, provides the gas engine component a new life. Back in 2006, Stuart came up with an idea to raise money for charity during his daily work routine.
Since that day the team working on the line have been quietly collecting copper rings whilst remanufacturing cylinder heads at Clarke Energy’s headquarters. The small copper sealing rings come from the spark plug tubes of Jenbacher gas engine cylinder heads, which are a by-product of the head remanufacture process.
The cylinder head team’s intention has always been to collect enough copper to weigh in for scrap and donate the money raised to Zoë’s Place Baby Hospice. Some 14 years later, the team had managed to fill 3 large boxes full of copper which is approximately 200,000 rings. Once the third box had been completely filled it was agreed it was finally time to weigh in the copper. When hearing the proceeds were to be donated to charity, Karalius Brothers Waste Ltd very kindly agreed to also waive their collection fee. After it was weighed and calculated the team had managed to raise a total of £478.80. Clarke Energy management agreed to match this and top it up to £1,000 and the full amount has now been donated Zoë’s Place, Stuart’s chosen charity.
Zoë’s Place Baby Hospice exists to provide a variety of palliative and respite services to support families of babies and infants aged from birth to five years suffering from life-limiting or life-threatening conditions. It is a 6-bed hospice and is the only one in the UK that caters specifically for babies.
