Repurpose Layman's Report by Groundwork London

LIFE+ Repurpose Project Layman’s Report

With the contribution of the LIFE financial instrument of the European Community. Project No: LIFE13 ENV/UK/000493

What is the Repurpose project?

The project’s overarching aim was to increase levels of re-use on London’s housing estates, reducing the quantity of reusable items going to landfill, and also bringing the social benefits of re-use schemes to social housing residents – creating a greater sense of community cohesion and supporting these residents to increase their skills and confidence.

Key objectives Increase re-use in target estates by 25% – helping to address the costs to local authorities and housing associations of low re-use in estates, as well as the wider environment.

The 1.1 million EUR Repurpose project, co-funded by the EU LIFE+ Programme1, was delivered between 2014 and 2017 by environmental regeneration charity Groundwork London in partnership with the London Community Resource Network (LCRN) and Middlesex University.

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Re-use hubs

CREATED

The project centred on the key challenge that, despite repeated efforts to engage residents, re-use in housing estates remains low and fly-tipping of bulky waste high. Repurpose has taken an entirely new approach to encouraging re-use and preventing fly-tipping, by working in partnership with local housing providers to turn redundant spaces on five London housing estates into reuse hubs (Loops) to collect, store, repair and sell reusable items. These activities have been complemented by an in-depth community engagement and behaviour change programme to encourage positive waste behaviours.

Additionally, each re-use hub has offered training, employment and volunteering opportunities for residents.

Reduce incidents of fly-tipping on estates by 25% – helping to address the cost to managing agents and local authorities of clearing fly-tipping, in addition to the negative impact on local environmental quality, wellbeing and mental health.

Increase the capacity and skills of resident communities on target estates – helping to address the levels of deprivation and employability linked to poor levels of environmental quality.

1 LIFE+ is the European Commission’s financial instrument supporting the implementation, updating and development of EU environmental policy and legislation by co-financing pilot or demonstration projects with European added value (http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life). This project has received 534,642 EUR funding through LIFE+, equivalent to 47.6% of the overall project budget.

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Why is re-use important?

The challenge Repurpose focuses on waste, one of the EU’s key environmental challenges. In 2014, the total waste generated in EU Member States by all economic activities and households amounted to 2,598 million tonnes, which equates to more than 5 tonnes per inhabitant. On average, over two fifths (43.6%) of this went to landfill sites, and a further 6.5% was incinerated.2 The latest figures for England show that over 22 million tonnes of waste were thrown away by households in 2014; approximately 3 tonnes per individual. Less than half of this (44.8%) was recycled, with a large share going to landfill sites or being incinerated.3 Low re-use levels: Levels of re-use, particularly within urban housing estates, are currently very low. Little has been done to enable communities on estates, who are often disadvantaged in many ways, to practise re-use as a normal behaviour.

Residents often have no option but to buy cheap, poorly constructed furniture that is easily damaged and hard to fix, so is often discarded on the street. With some residents, the habit of fly-tipping bulky waste items, which then have to be cleared up by the estates’ waste teams and taken to landfill, is prevalent, reinforcing the view that this is a ‘normal’ way to behave, and creating an undesirable environment for the majority of estate residents.

High levels of fly-tipping: Fly-tipping is a serious problem across Europe. In England

in 2015/16, for example, local authorities dealt with 936,000 incidents of fly-tipping, at a cost of nearly £50 million. Over two thirds of these incidents involved household waste. 17% of these incidents were recorded as single items, including household items such as furniture and mattresses.4 Fly-tipping is often in urban areas, and local authority land, such as estates, car parks, parks and open spaces, has been found to be one of the most popular sites for dumping.

Low levels of local environmental quality: Fly-tipping of waste is one of a number of factors that has a negative impact on local environmental quality and resident satisfaction with their local area. The European Environment Agency (EEA) notes that the environment plays a crucial role in people’s physical, mental and social well-being and that despite significant improvements, major differences in environmental quality and human health remain between and within European countries.5

2 Eurostat Waste Statistics, 2016: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Waste_statistics 3 UK Statistics on Waste, 2016: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/547427/UK_Statistics_on_Waste_statistical_notice_25_08_16_update__2_.pdf 4 Defra, UK 2017: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/595773/Flytipping_201516_statistical_release.pdf 5 EEA, 2010: The European Environment – State and Outlook: www.eea.europa.eu/soer/synthesis/synthesis/chapter5.xhtml

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Low levels of community cohesion: Community cohesion is widely considered to be an important factor for residents to feel satisfied with where they live. However, low levels of community engagement and participation are an issue in urban areas across Europe. This can come about for a number of reasons, including a lack of integration opportunities, low skills and resulting employment prospects, poor home conditions and cultural barriers such as language.

The benefits Re-use initiatives have the potential to deliver a wide range of benefits, not only for the environment by reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfill, but also by bringing about social and economic benefits to those living in the area through the creation of opportunities for social interaction, training, volunteering and employment.

Some key areas of potential include: • Many items are reusable – A UK study by WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) found that of bulky waste items collected at the kerbside, 24% were estimated to be reusable in their current condition, rising to 40% if items requiring slight repair are taken into account.6 • CO2 emissions reductions – WRAP has also estimated that increasing re-use of key household products, such as clothes, household appliances and

•

•

•

•

electrical equipment, could reduce UK greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 4 million tonnes CO2e per year between now and 2020.7 The EEB estimates that re-use schemes could save 415 Mt of CO2 emissions across the EU by 2030.8 Need for low cost furniture – There is a considerable need for low cost furniture on estates – where there can be a high turnover of residents, including those who are housed temporarily, and social services often have to direct residents some distance away to source low cost furniture.

Underused, skilled residents – On many estates there are residents who are not working during the day, have relevant skills, and could benefit from volunteering.

Job creation – For example, the EEB estimates that re-use schemes could create 860,000 jobs across the EU by 2030.9 Upskilling residents – There is also potential to upskill residents in repair or re-use, as many people do not know how to repair or make best use of items which leads to them being disposed of instead.

The policy context The EU’s 7th Environment Action Programme identifies waste prevention and management as one of Europe’s top priorities, with a focus on a circular economy where nothing is wasted and where low carbon growth does not mean greater resource use.10 EU waste management policies aim to reduce the environmental and health impacts of waste and improve Europe’s resource

6 Composition and re-use potential of household bulky waste in the UK (2012): www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/UK%20bulky%20waste%20summary.pdf 7 Waste and Resources Action Plan, UK 2009: Meeting the UK Climate Challenge: The Contribution of Resource Efficiency 8 European Environmental Bureau, Belgium 2014: Advancing resource efficiency in Europe 9 Ibid.

10 Environment Action Programme to 2020: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/action-programme/

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efficiency. Re-use, previously overshadowed in the political arena by recycling, is now recognised in the waste hierarchy as one of the best resource efficiency strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Key European legislation that has the potential to support an increase in re-use initiatives across Europe includes: • Circular Economy Package11 – features an Action Plan for the Circular Economy, with proposed actions supporting greater recycling and re-use.

• Waste Framework Directive12 – asks Member States to make provision for ‘preparing for re-use’, increasing levels of re-use in waste streams where disposal is currently the preferred route.

• Landfill Directive13 – aims to prevent or reduce as far as possible negative effects on the environment from the landfilling of waste, by introducing stringent technical requirements.

• Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive14 – this sets collection, recycling and recovery targets for all types of electrical goods, with provisions for greater access for re-use operators and social enterprises to waste collection points.

• Ecodesign Directive15 – sets requirements for the design of energy-related products to consider several environmental aspects including possibilities for reuse, recycling and recovery of materials and/or energy.

• Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive16 – aims to limit the production of packaging waste and promotes recycling, re-use and other forms of waste recovery.

As a member of the EU, the UK’s waste legislation has been shaped by European waste policy for many years, and in turn this has filtered down to regional and local approaches to waste management. Relevant national policies include Waste Regulations, WEEE Regulations, and the Environmental Protection Act. However, the implementation of EU waste law in the UK context has not always been straightforward, including a lack of clarity surrounding what certain elements of legislation mean in operational terms.

Britain’s withdrawal from the EU may significantly impact the way waste is managed, with more freedom for the UK to define its own waste policy. The implications of Brexit could include changes to the way in which waste is defined in the UK, and a possible regional divergenceof targets and initiatives.

More information on this, as well as recommendations for policy changes that would better support re-use, is provided in the Policy Pack developed as part of the Repurpose project, available at www.repurpose.london.

11 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/index_en.htm 12 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32008L0098 13 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31999L0031 14 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32002L0096 15 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32009L0125 16 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:01994L0062-20150526

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Key Activities of the Project • Developing a transferable methodology for resident engagement, resulting in behaviour change to support an uptake in re-use and recycling on each participating estate.

• Creating five community collection, repair and re-use hubs in underused spaces on participating estates.

• Launching and delivering a re-use collection and redistribution service on each of the participating estates.

• Undertaking repairs and upcycling of items as required, before selling them back to the community at affordable prices.

• Creating training, employment and volunteering opportunities for local people, helping them to develop long-term skills.

• Designing an evaluation methodology capturing technical performance and behavioural change impacts of the project, working with Middlesex University on the latter.

• Brokering and negotiating ongoing re-use services, working with the local project partners to explore options for continuation across the five estates.

• Developing engaging e-learning materials, including an implementation guide and toolkit to support others to develop similar initiatives, and a policy pack to inform local, national and EU policy, strategy and best practice.

Project location

Repurpose has been delivered in five estates across London: • The Loop @ Pembury in Hackney in partnership with Peabody • The Loop @ Grahame Park in Barnet in partnership with Genesis Housing and Barnet Council • The Loop @ White City in Shepherd’s Bush in partnership with Hammersmith & Fulham Council • The Loop @ Samuel Lewis Trust in Southwark in partnership with Southern Housing Group • The Loop @ Andover in Islington in partnership with The London Borough of Islington These estates differ in size and nature, but are typically representative of estate types across London and the UK. They range from 250 households at the Samuel Lewis Trust estate to over 2,000 on White City. Some have a large amount of community activities on site, whilst others have none. Some have recently undergone regeneration, others are experiencing ongoing regeneration, and others are more static. In some cases, the estate is located near to amenities and able to pay markets, whereas others are much more isolated.

These factors have impacted on the type and size of space that the Repurpose project has been able to secure for its re-use hubs – ranging from an old shop at Grahame Park, undercrofts and underground garages at White City and Pembury, to shipping containers at the Samuel Lewis Trust estate. In turn, this has had a considerable impact on the service that the project has been able to provide on each estate.

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Spotlight: Community engagement

Residents of the five estates have been engaged throughout the life of the project, giving them the opportunity to be involved on a range of levels. Beyond donations and sales this has included volunteering at the Loops, attending events, participating in workshops and becoming project ambassadors. The greater amount of involvement from residents, the more they have felt that the Loop is ‘their’ project.

3,160

Events have taken place with a range of different members of the local community, from schools to older people’s groups, all with a common aim of tackling the root causes of fly-tipping and encouraging positive environmental action.

residents donated items

82

%

of residents were

worried about waste

68

%

of residents

re-using more & wasting less

1,755 50% residents PURCHASED ITEMS

of items donated by

The Loops have also created opportunities for residents to interact and engage in on-estate activity, helping to bring about stronger social cohesion.

“I love the re-use elf game. It’s so great for all ages, from babies to seniors, everyone has learnt something new today and had fun in the process. You can almost hear the children’s brains ticking as they decide between re-use, recycle, compost and waste. Thanks for letting me be part of it.”

Resident, Pembury

residents

3,400 RESIDENTS

ENGAGED

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SCHOOLS ENGAGED

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“Whenever I have mentioned the Loop to other people they have sung its praises, so many people have been helped on Grahame Park and have helped others by donating furniture. People love this place and have never seen another place like [it], it is the most amazing place to come to and I’m really grateful it’s here as it’s the only place that is genuinely there to help the local community and people in need.”

Customer, Grahame Park

Spotlight: Training, volunteering and employment

Taking on local residents as staff and volunteers has been a key aspect of the project, and has been highly beneficial for both the project and the residents. Many have come to the project with existing skills; others have been trained in skills through the project, skills which they will now be able to use for life. The volunteer programme has proved so popular that some volunteers have given over 900 hours of their time to the project. Not only has this helped these local people to develop and improve their practical skills, but it has also helped them to interact with their neighbours, form new relationships and in some cases even return to work after long periods of unemployment.

“I was doing nothing really before volunteering. Coming here motivates me to get up in the morning. It makes me think I could focus and do other things with my life. I didn’t think I would ever work again but this makes me think I could do it. Since I started working here I’ve applied for an adult literacy course. I’ve always avoided applying for jobs because I’m dyslexic. That affected my confidence. But now I feel motivated to try and learn.”

Volunteer on Samuel Lewis Trust estate

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JOBS

CREATED

65 local

volunteers

INVOLVED 8

Project results

The main quantitative outcomes and successes of the project across the five Loops are as follows:

3,650 items of furniture

supplied to low income families

2

£650k

AWARDS

WON 7,150

BULKY ITEMS removed from waste stream

30 COLLECTED %

of items

from fly tipping

DELIVERED IN

Social Value

111 tonnes CO2 saved

70

%

of collected items

needed no refurbishment or only a light clean

• Removed over 7,150 bulky items (102 tonnes) from the waste stream; 376 per month on average tripling expectations in year 1 • 50% of items have come from residents (collection or drop-off), and 30% from fly-tipping.

• 70% of items have needed no work done on them, or only a light clean • Provided over 3,650 items of low cost furniture to low income and vulnerable families • 111 tonnes CO2 saved through re-use and recycling of items collected • Changed behaviour on waste, re-use and recycling through 104 events; 3,160 residents have donated items and 1,755 have purchased items • Created new community connections and activated unused spaces • Provided local volunteering and employment for 65 volunteers; some providing over 900 hours • Delivered over £650,000 in social value.

Wider impacts of the project include: • Changed attitudes to waste – behaviour change surveys conducted with residents have shown that: –– Only 9% of residents who have engaged with Repurpose would ‘put a reusable item outside’ if they no longer wanted it, compared with 21% of residents who hadn’t engaged –– 82% of those engaged with the project are concerned about reusable items going to waste, compared with 45% who hadn’t been engaged –– 68% of those who have engaged with Repurpose report they ‘re-use more, throw fewer items away, fly-tip less or recycle more’ as a result of their engagement.

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• Strong social outcomes, in particular for those who have engaged with the project as volunteers at the Loops.

• Creation of social cohesion by providing opportunities for community engagement.

• Provision of furniture for those who need it, at a cost they can afford.

More information on the behaviour change aspects of the project is available in Middlesex University’s Behaviour Change Monitoring Report at www.repurpose.london.

These wide and varied impacts have resulted in all of the estates now operating a legacy programme funded by local partners, enabling the services the Loops offer to continue.

Longer term benefits and lessons learned

The longer term benefits of the project are likely to be wide ranging, including: • Embedding re-use on estates – All of the project’s housing provider partners are exploring the potential to review their bulky waste collection procedures and embed re-use across their estates, although this process takes time due to the nature of waste contracts.

• Embedding re-use behaviours – Behaviour change has already been generated within the communities across the five estates, but by its very nature this form of social interaction is long-term, as it builds a culture of re-use and repurposing within the communities which can then be transmitted to new residents over time.

• Residents’ skills and employability – Whilst the social and economic benefits to residents are already clear, the impact on the employability of residents who have engaged through training and volunteering opportunities, and their ongoing use of skills gained through this, will continue to become apparent in years to come. Likewise, the mental health and wellbeing impacts that the project has delivered are likely to continue to be felt by those who have engaged, with new social connections between residents lasting far beyond the project itself.

• Policy changes – There is scope for a number of relevant policies at EU, national and regional level to be amended so that they better support and encourage re-use. The project’s Policy Pack makes a number of recommendations for how this could be done, and the project team has also input to policy discussions at meetings and events; as policy changes take time to implement the impacts of these contributions remain to be seen.

• Replication of the project – Resources developed and lessons learned through the project (see section below) are being disseminated widely, with a view to supporting and encouraging other housing providers

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to develop similar initiatives on their own estates.

Positive discussions have started with several housing providers in London, which are expected to develop into concrete plans in the coming months.

Some of the key lessons that have been learned during the project include: • Huge social value – The social impact of the programme has been as significant as the environmental impact • Not one size fits all – The service needs to evolve to respond to the needs of a particular location • Size matters – There is a minimum size estate and hub to be able to run a full service • Community activity helps – Existing community groups can help the programme to establish itself quickly • Volunteers need support – Many may be high needs and running a full-scale service would be beyond their capacity or interest; it is likely that volunteer led schemes would need to be on a much smaller scale (e.g. workshops and events only) • Needs an active partner – The greater the partner support the better • Embedding re-use programmes into business as usual takes time – Waste contracts are long-term and engendering organisational change without policy drivers needs commitment and vision • Needs multiple onsite staff – For example, in Repurpose there was one re-use coordinator with a wide skill set on each estate, who was responsible for many elements of the project on that estate.

Transferability of the project

1

layman’s report produced

12

presentations

DELIVERED

105 meetings, workshops, or

EVENTS

20

other HOUSING PROVIDERS

ENGAGED

4

case studies

published

1

implementation guide CREATED

85

ARTICLES

PUBLISHED

1

toolkit for residents

One of the aims of the project was to develop and adopt a methodology that is replicable in and transferable to other urban housing estates across Europe. The approaches taken show that it is possible for a re-use programme to transform the lives of people living in housing estates, and through the project the various conditions for such schemes to be successful have been explored.

This has led to the project establishing three models for operating an estate-based re-use programme, broadly defined by estate size alongside other key factors: a fulltime service; a part-time service; and a periodic eventsbased service. These models are being shared with other housing providers to help them assess the feasibility of developing their own re-use schemes.

The project has also gained recognition across the UK and Europe as an exemplar of what can be achieved in the context of re-use in housing estates, including featuring in the recent LIFE and the Circular Economy brochure17 and winning the UK Furniture Re-use Network’s Re-use Organisation of the Year Award in 201718.

• A Toolkit – which gives support to residents interested in setting up similar schemes on their estates; and • A Policy Pack – which makes recommendations to decision makers at the European, national and regional level on how to support this kind of programme strategically.

These are all available to download from the Repurpose website, www.repurpose.london, and have been disseminated widely. These resources, alongside the experiences and lessons learned from the project, all serve to facilitate the transferability of the project to other housing environments, both in the UK and across Europe.

BRINGING

the social benefits of

RE-USE

to your estate

OSE: REPURP N NTATIO

RE-U POLICY SE PACK

E

IMPLEM

GUIDE

Based on the lessons learned during the project, a number of resources designed to help other housing providers set up similar schemes have been developed: • An Implementation Guide – which gives practical guidance to housing providers on how re-use schemes can operate, and provides more detail on the models referred to above;

LIFE+ RE PURPO Influen SE proj cing po ect licy and best pr actice:

A toolkit brought to you by Groundwork London

With the contribution of the LIFE+ financial instrument of the European Community.

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With the cont of the Euro ribution of the LIFE+ finan pean Com cial instr munity. ument Project No: LIFE1 3 ENV/ UK/00049

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1

DEVELOPED

17 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/publications/lifepublications/lifefocus/documents/circular_economy.pdf 18 www.frn.org.uk/news/399-the-furniture-re-use-network-awards-its-shining-stars-across-the-re-use-sector.html

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Contact details Hannah Baker, Programme Manager Groundwork London 18-21 Morley Street London SE1 7QZ UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7922 1230 Email: hannah.baker@groundwork.org.uk Project website: www.repurpose.london Twitter: #RepurposeLDN LIFE projects database: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/project/Projects/ index.cfm?fuseaction=search.dspPage&n_proj_id=4945

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