Dips your lid to Tim, Canberra's hero

The 44-year-old dad from Aranda was this week named the 2021 ACT Local Hero in the Australian of the Year Awards. He will now be in the running for the national award, to be announced on January 25.

"I feel incredibly just ... stunned," he said.

"And really humbled."

Tim was recognised for his work creating Lids4Kids which in just 18 months has diverted an estimated 15 million plastic lids from landfill, a remarkable effort, given he started the project with a donations bucket he placed on the footpath outside his home and has coordinated the whole campaign from his garage.

He asked his children what to call the project and middle son Oscar, 9, came up with Lids4Kids. So that's what Tim wrote on that first bucket and a phenomenon was born.

The grassroots organisation spread Australia-wide "accidentally" after Tim posted about plastic lid donations on Facebook and the post went viral. Thousands of Lids4Kids volunteers were now collecting lids around the nation.

Tim said he was originally collecting bottles and cans for recycling to direct proceeds to children's charities and was stunned to learn the lids weren't being recycled by mainstream companies. He said milk, soft drink and water bottle lids were the best to recycle as they were non-toxic. There just had be the will to do it. The lids were originally being directed to a Melbourne charity that made mobility aids for children from the plastic but that stopped when it reached its limit.

Now, the lids were sent to small businesses making anything from playground equipment to decks to outdoor furniture from the recycled plastic. The whole point was to keep them out of landfill.

Tim said no lid was turned away. Even those that couldn't be recycled were repurposed for things like kindergarten craft.

Tim was an "Air Force kid who did the Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Malaysia loop" but did most of his growing up in West Belconnen.

A former public servant, he was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and Crohn's disease a decade ago.

Supporting children's charities lifted him out of an emotional black hole.

"I was in the liver clinic and feeling pretty sorry for myself. The whole waiting area was me and a sea of grey hair. Then a nine-year-old girl walked in and I got talking to her parents. She had all the same stuff as me and she wasn't expected to make it to 20," he said, close to tears.

Tim asked her parents how he could help. They suggested fundraising for medical research and for anything that could improve the lives of sick children. It was a turning point.

"Immediately, all my anger, resentment, frustration and feeling sorry for myself and pissed off at the world just went," he said.

Tim started doing outback rallies, fundraising for children's charities such as Variety and Camp Quality. He understood his love of cars and the environment weren't entirely compatible and paid for trees to be planted to offset being a motorhead.

Lids4Kids, meanwhile, continues to grow. An amazing 50,000 lids were still delivered each week to his house for sorting by volunteers.

Tim was now appealing for big-hearted Canberra to come through with a donated space in Belconnen where Lids4Kids could have a permanent home.

"I need to save my marriage and get all this out of my garage," he said, half-joking.