An East Yorkshire dad has spent 12 years collecting 24,000 empty crisp packets – but is now calling it a day.
Gary Key, a 60-year-old avid recycler from Cottingham, took up the “daft hobby” as a coping mechanism when his partner, Joanne, was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. Since then, he has featured in national papers and on Have I Got News For You.
“I started collecting because I was fed up knowing that in a period of five to six months, my partner was going to die,” Gary said. “I wanted to do something to occupy me. Why it was crisp packets, god only knows. Joanne called me a nutter, but I could’ve been called worse!”
READ MORE:
After Joanne’s death, Gary continued the sedate hobby, initially to help him deal with the grieving process. By 2016, he had 8,000 and he has continued building the collection at a rate of about five bags a day – some from his own groceries and some collected from the streets where they are regularly dropped by litter louts.
To help reduce the amount of space needed to store the bags, Gary grilled the wrappers and rolled them…
