Social Enterprise Recycling and Reuse - Case Study 2006

Case Studies – Recycling and the environment

Introduction: Social Enterprise East of England, SEEE, is a network of social enterprises, advice and support organisations, local authorities and other groups with interests in Social Enterprise – particularly in its promotion and development. It covers the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

The Eastern Region has some outstanding examples of social enterprise and innovative approaches to providing the sector with advice, support and funding. The SEEE network has been established to promote, celebrate and share these successes and assist in implementing best practice throughout the Region.

Are you interested in the development of Social Enterprise in the East of England? Would you like to know more about the services available?

Would you like to get in touch with other social enterprises? Would you like the opportunity to influence policy in social enterprise?

For an informal discussion on how SEEE may be able to help you, contact

InTouch SOCIAL ENTERPRISE EAST OF ENGLAND

Case Studies –

Recycling and the environment

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nvironmental and recycling enterprises have clear community benefits. Social enterprises can offer inclusive models of business that involve members of the community actively participating in environmentally oriented businesses, thus combining the principles

of environmental sustainability with longterm business viability. Restrictions on the disposal of electronic equipment have given a boost to IT recycling schemes, two of which are described here, along with a furniture scheme; and all of them operate as social enterprises.

Moving the Furniture

Peter See Development Manager, Social Enterprise East of England T: 01727 813401 peters@exemplas.com

Internet: SEEE’s Web partner services are at: www.seee.co.uk www.nearbuyou.co.uk The SEEE network is co-ordinated by Business Link Hertfordshire InTouch is financed by SEEE (funded by the European Social Fund ) and published in its support by Business for People in partnership with Creative Touch, both of which are social enterprises. All case studies written by Andrew Saul unless otherwise credited. Layout by Jade Bambrook.

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4 Archers Court Stukeley Road Huntingdon PE29 6XG 01480 455200

The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers or of Business Link Hertfordshire, Business for People Ltd or Creative Touch.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in an information retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publishers. This publication has been prepared using information provided by contributors and, while we make every effort, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. SSEER is unable to accept any liability for the consequences of any inaccuracies, errors or omissions in this publication. No representations, warranties or endorsements of any kind are intended.

© SEEE 2005

Furniture Link bought a new van last year with funding from local charity, The Bedford Charity. Trustee Carol Ellis hands over the keys outside the Gadsby Street warehouse.

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or many people experiencing hardship in their lives, essential items such as furniture and household goods can seem prohibitively expensive. Furniture Link is a registered charity which provides furniture, electrical goods and household items to people on benefits or low income in North and Mid Bedfordshire.

Started by the borough council in 1997, Furniture Link has since become an independent charity. It collects around 5-6,000 donated items a year, including cookers, lamps, kettles, bedding and towels. These are repaired and refurbished by a team of 30-40 volunteers. The project is managed by four permanent staff who are funded through the National Lottery Community Fund.

A small handling charge is made to the recipients of the items. Manager Kathy Lewis told me that Furniture Link made approximately £40,000 last year from h charges and fees. Kathy is hoping to move the project to larger premises soon. The current warehouse is too small, forcing Furniture Link to turn away as many donations as it accepts. To comply w health and safety law it can only open 10-1 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and 10-2 on Wednesdays. The new premises will permit longer opening hours, and allow for the expansion of the electrical goods workshop.

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Furniture Link Tel: 01234 353578 www.flb.org.uk Email: mail@flb.org.uk

Recycling and the Environment

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h e Ca m b r i d g e Co m m u n i t y Re u s e and Recycling Network (CCORRN – pronounced “corn”), is a community based not-for-profit organisation which promotes reuse and recycling schemes throughout Cambridgeshire.

CCORRN is a partnership between the community, public and private sectors. The project started in 2003 with support from DEFRA and other organisations. Funding comes from the Cambridgeshire County and District Councils and the Peterborough Unitary Authority.

The aims of CCORRN are to promote awareness of recycling issues, help organisations to share information, knowledge and skills, work on joint projects, avoid overlaps i service provision, access funding and develop partnerships.

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CCORRN PO Box 890, Willingham, Cambridge, CB4 5ZF Tel: 01954 260909 Fax: 01954 260866 misskaybarnes@ntlworld.com

MIND your A

very successful reuse business is operated by MIND in West Norfolk – so successful that it manages without any grant funding.

Every penny it makes is from the reselling of furniture, clothing, toys and white goods. The business has been running for over four years and provides a range of employment opportunities for people who have experienced mental health problems.

An employment support worker is on hand to provide assistance as needed.

This not-for-profit business operates several sites. Its Richmond Place branch in Kings Lynn provides opportunities to experience gainful employment.

Another branch in Saunders Yard, Kings Lynn, provides a small house removal service. Collected furniture is restored and offered at £2 per item in its Bits and Pieces retail outlet.

The branch in Cousins Court, Downham Market, prepares people

SOFA recycles furniture and electrical items W

hilst working in the Cambridge C i t y C o u n c i l ’s h o u s i n g department in 1988, Richard Darlington noticed a lot of used furniture from “void” properties going to landfill sites. His colleague Peter Wilson from social services knew of many families who could benefit from the items. Later that year they formed SOFA. The acronym stands for Shifts Offered Furniture Around.

A referral system – in which agencies such as Social Services and housing groups would refer people to SOFA – was established to ensure that furniture would only reach those with genuine needs.

I the 1990s, local electrician Basil Board offered his services at a vastly reduced rate, allowing electrical appliances to be recycled too. SOFA became a registered charity in February 1993.

In 2001, SOFA appointed Sarah Steggles as outreach officer. The aim of the outreach project is to improve contact with agencies which refer clients, and to research and target deprived areas where there is little take up of SOFA’s services, particularly in isolated rural areas.

Sarah also finds corporate donations

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of electrical appliances and furniture and creates meaningful volunteering opportunities for local people. “Meaningful varies according to the individual”, Cambridge SOFA manager Beni Benstead told me; “it might be just the opportunity to get out of the house and do something useful, or receiving training”. Sarah gives talks and presentations on SOFA’s work and publishes leaflets and posters to raise awareness.

Beni told me there are 282 SOFAs SOFA shifted 63.4 tonnes of furniture, throughout the UK, each independently and its shop sales netted £60,000. Its owned and operated. The concept has growth continues; in 2004 it has shifted not been franchised, as the aim is not to 3,277 items of furniture so far, and it has make a profit, but information on best just been announced that Cambridge practice is shared, and the various SOFAs SOFA is to receive a grant from CCORRN are members of the National Furniture to help encourage people to reuse large R Network – Beni sits on the executive bulky household items such as electrical board. Cambridge SOFA is 50% financed appliances and larger soft furnishings. through its shop sales, the other SOFA, Unit H The Paddocks, half of its income coming 347 Cherry Hinton Road, Cambridge. CB1 8DH from charitable trusts and Tel: 01223 576535 donations. In 2003, Cambridge recycle@cambridgesofa.fsnet.co.uk

Case Studies – Recycling and the environment

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Recycling and the Environment

business for general employment. Cousins Court offers the opportunity to gain experience with wood working tools and machinery, manufacturing items which are sold in the adjoining Bits and Pieces shop.

Chief Executive Mick Ford told me “People tell us it doesn’t look or feel like a charity shop. It is very up market”.

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West Norfolk MIND 3-4 Richmond Place, Columbia Way Kings Lynn, Norfolk. PE30 2NE Tel: 01553 776966 Cousins Court, Paradise Road Downham Market, Norfolk. PE38 9HS Tel: 01366 385991 Unit 1, Saunders Yard Kings Lynn. PE30 1PH Tel: 01553 385991 westnorfolk.mind@tiscali.co.uk

Suffolk Scrap Store

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he Suffolk Scrap Store creates vocational opportunities for adults with learning difficulties. The project collects out-of-date, damaged or surplus items from businesses in Suffolk, including aluminium cans, printer cartridges, mobile phones and other items. Organisations such as schools, nurseries and other community groups visit the project and collect the materials for use in art and craft, design technology and similar activities.

The store has been open to the public since April 1999. It is a not-for-profit initiative set up by Suffolk Council’s Social Services Department, which provides the funding, and the Suffolk Scrap Store Trust, with the aim of benefiting people with learning difficulties, the environment and the local community. Items are collected for free. All money raised is used for the continuing development of the scrap store.

The project helps people with learning difficulties develop their educational, communication, social and work skills by creating opportunities in an appropriate work-based environment.

It also gives customers collecting goods the opportunity to meet and talk with the workforce and learn about their accomplishments.

Another initiative by the company is the “Starting from scrap” project, which involves visual artists working with adults who have learning difficulties. Together they are producing a range of arts activity “scrap packs” for use by schools, playgroups and nurseries in the Ipswich area.

Initially supported by the artists, members of the group will demonstrate the scrap packs in a series of creative art w A volunteer at the scrap store is learning the necessary skills to support the project when the artists have withdrawn.

The adults with learning difficulties gain the confidence to express themselves through the creative arts and benefit from interacting with the community.

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Suffolk Scrap Store 9 Scrivener Drive, Ipswich. IP2 0SD Tel: 01473 601779 suffolkscrapstore@btconnect.com

Fuel from chip oil “

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very year, the UK imports 320 million dollars worth of biodiesel fuel, made from waste cooking oil; the material could be made locally and put money into the UK economy,” says Martin Brook, the owner and chairman of biodiesel. The advantage of the fuel is that it produces almost no hydrocarbon emissions. At the moment the company has two plants up and running, one in Luton and the other in South Wales.

Martin is to open a new plant in North Wales and plans another in Scotland. The Welsh constitution obliges the country to develop environmentally friendly resources.

At the moment the company employs 20 people and will be taking on 12 more in the new year. The workforce is a healthy mix of people experienced in the petrochemical industry and recent graduates. Profits are being put back into the further development of the company.

At the moment, Tesco and Sainsbury’s are selling a fuel which is 5% biodiesel and 95% hydrocarbon fuel. In Germany a fuel with 20% biological content is available, so there is quite a bit of room for improvement, but as Martin says, “It’s a start.”

The UK produces only a fraction of the $320 million worth of biodiesel it imports.

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InTouch

biodiesel 54 Lambs Lane, Cottenham, Cambridgeshire. CB4 8TA Tel: 07970 979646 martinbrook@ntlworld.com www.biofuel.org.uk

Case Studies – Recycling and the environment

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Recycling and the Environment

Why not Recycle IT? I

n today’s world, an increasing number of people need computers, but many find the costs prohibitive. Recycle IT is a Luton company which acquires computers from companies which are upgrading, and sells them to customers in the UK, Europe, and developing countries such as Kurdistan, Georgia and Ghana.

Recycle IT has been running for about nine and a half years. The business was started after managing director Michele Rigby tried to obtain 12 computers for a community project. She became aware that others had similar needs, and the company grew from there. “We had no idea it would be going 10 years later,” Michelle told me.

The company has recycled nearly 100,000 pieces of equipment.

The company is not charged rent by its landlords, SKF (UK) Ltd, but is otherwise self-funding. It makes 100% of its income

from sales, and employs seven paid staff, several more on work placements, and a number of permanent volunteers. The work consists of wiping existing data from computers, repairing equipment where n and, for the UK market, installing any upgrades required by the customer.

With very few exceptions, the only way to get a job with Recycle IT is through a work placement. Because it cannot employ everybody who undertakes a work placement, the company helps in finding employment with other companies. “Before the term ‘social firm’ was thought of, we used to say that we had an un-equal opportunities policy” Michelle told me, “it got the point across to people”.

The company’s success recently saw it recognised by the DTI with the London UK Trade and Investment Award for Service Company of the Year; it is the latest of

Award-winning work in progress at Recycle IT

several awards they have won. Social Firms UK is also interested in developing the concept as a franchise, so there could be branches throughout the UK one day.

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Recycle IT Luton Tel: 0870 7743762 Norwich Tel: 01603 667525 www.recycle-it.ltd.uk

Millrace IT –

by Sarah Charters

“Saving the earth doesn’t have to cost it”

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n operation since 1995, Millrace IT began as a project run by a Christian charity, InterAct. As it grew, the potential to turn it into a separate enterprise was realised, and in the year 2000 it became a social firm. Turnover for last year was £125,000 and 75% came directly through trade.

Providing a number of IT services, Millrace supply cost-effective refurbished PCs, IT tutoring, network installations, upgrading and many other IT services to local organisations and individuals. They also provide training, work experience

and assistance into paid employment to people disadvantaged in the job market, especially those with learning disabilities and people recovering from mental ill health. Now a customer themselves, InterAct use Millrace to refurbish old PCs which the charity donate to educational organisations overseas. This year Millrace will ship around 1,500 computers to Africa.

Three members of staff have come through InterAct and are now fully recovered from their experience of mental ill-health and many of the trainees and

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Millrace IT Tel. 01245 258311 Fax. 01245 257159 mail@millraceit.co.uk www.millraceit.co.uk

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volunteers are in the process of recovery, working at Millrace as part of their rehabilitation.

Monitors are now legally classified as hazardous waste, so if you have a monitor or PC you no longer want, don’t dump it, call the Millrace office. If you wish to volunteer (experience of computers or electronics is a bonus), call manager Lyndon Stayte on the number below.

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Case Studies – Recycling and the environment