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It’s not always easy to find a partner in love, but finding lids for kitchen containers can be tough going, too.
Across the country, lonely, lid-less plastic containers and single lids sit forlornly in kitchen cupboards and drawers, waiting for their prince to come.
“I love it”: Amelia Trompf at the Project Pair Up stall.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Enter plastic matchmaker Amelia Trompf, whose free stall, Project Pair Up at Alphington Farmers Market in Melbourne’s north, has proved a hit.
She has made it her mission to keep plastics out of landfill and make lunch boxes, pasta storage containers and cordial jugs usable again.
Since Trompf started the stall in September, running it on Sunday mornings for four hours as a volunteer, she has helped engineer more than 650 matches.
Residents drop off pieces for Trompf at neighbourhood houses, learning centres, schools and kinders. Many have heard about the project on Instagram.
Others come past her stall and browse.
“People love it,” she said. “They take a photo and say, ‘It’s such a good idea’ or, ‘Oh, my god, I’ve got that problem too.’ A couple of weeks later they come back and donate their own containers.”
When they find a match, “people get really excited, they cheer”, Trompf says.
Two children come almost every week to match lids with containers for fun. Last week, an older couple spent 90 minutes doing the same. “They matched about six and they were really excited.”
The stall accepts clean and non-damaged pieces from the public, including keep cups and clips that act as hinges.
It’s a match: Amelia Trompf (right) at Alphington Farmers Market with customer Corrin McNamara.Credit: Wayne Taylor
It doesn’t accept takeaway food containers because they split too easily.
In state parliament in February, MP Kat Theophanous praised Trompf’s efforts. “We know how harmful single-use plastics are and the problem waste they create,” she said. “As the member for Northcote, I’m proud to represent people like Amelia Trompf.”
Customer Corrin McNamara, of Northcote, who has matched five containers with lids at the stall and donated her own pieces, said: “I think it’s a great idea. We have a big drawer of containers that we use and there’s always missing bits.
“My children often come home with a plastic container without a lid, or a lid without the base, so it’s a great, free, resourceful project that keeps plastics out of landfill, to be reused.
“Lunch boxes are very expensive if you get good ones. And I don’t mind using someone’s second-hand containers. You give them a wash and reuse them.”
Trompf’s project was inspired by a lid and container matching project run by Janice Mochrie, of the group Darebin Hard Rubbish Heroes, which is running a pop-up shop at Northcote Plaza.
Trompf said she may not be changing the world, “but I think it’s starting conversations and I get to meet loads of interesting people. Lots of older people talk about when they were younger, not throwing so much stuff away.”
A woman who had lived in Cuba told her in that country, plastic items such as these were so hard to find that people treasured them.
“We need to do that, too,” Trompf said, “because they’re made out of fossil fuels, and they’re precious. They’re a resource.”
Trompf brings her three children to the market and enjoys being there. “To me, it’s about the community as much as anything,” she says. “I see all my neighbours. It gives me a lot of joy. I love it. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t love it.”
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