Within Cornwall we collect unwanted furniture and appliances from householders and eight Civic Amenity sites situated in the East of the county. These items are processed through our big warehouse RE:STORE and are sold at our shop RE:SOURCE; both of which are based in Bodmin. These projects help people to stop their waste items ending up in landfill, encourage people to consider that these items still have value and offer a cheap and easy way for families to lower their environmental impact and support their local community.
The centres, on average, prevent 30 tonnes of waste from going to landfill every month and approximately 120 tonnes of CO2e; but they also help people too! Through both centres we provide training and volunteering opportunities in a real workplace environment for people of all backgrounds; and as well as providing affordable furniture with discounts to those on benefits we have also been able to provide free furniture packs to 170 homeless families to help furnish their new accommodation.
If items can’t be reused at RE:SOURCE we try very hard to recycle everything we can, with appliances being stripped down for spares or recyclable metals and waste wood sometimes being used for design projects to make new items like garden furniture and beds. This kind of work and our experience in furniture reuse has encouraged us to branch out to form a collaborative project with two design companies from the private sector to offer an interior design service called Fresk. Fresk is keen to introduce reuse as a consideration of the design process. Fixtures and fittings will be reused as far as possible, any unwanted furniture will be sold through our shop and much of the making and doing will be carried out within our existing workshops using trainees and volunteers. This is an exciting new venture that we will be progressing in 2011/12
In a further effort to reduce waste to landfill but also to create unique training opportunities, this year we will also be launching a Bike Recycling Hub, to give life to unwanted bicycles but also to provide exciting training opportunities to youngsters furthest from the job market. The reconditioned bikes will be sold to the local community at RE:SOURCE
The other area of waste reduction where we have particular expertise is Real Nappies. We’ve been talking about the virtues of Real Nappies to parents in Cornwall for over 6 years and won awards for our imaginative ways of tackling people’s barriers to using them. Following our success in Cornwall ReZolve now manages Go Real which is the national Real Nappy information service. Go Real provides an independent advice service to parents across the UK, giving them all the information that they need to make the choice to use Real Nappies. The Go Real team manages a website, social media applications, telephone helpline and email service so that parents can always get hold of them with their nappy quandaries. Go Real also give advice and information to manufacturers, retailers and Local Authorities on promoting Real Nappies and are responsible for introducing innovative new schemes across the country which help parents to access Real Nappies more easily.
