Braintree council wins award for charity shop support

At the Association's annual conference at Keele Conference Park two weeks ago, the association named Braintree district council as the “most supportive local authority for recycling/re-use/waste management”.

Award: (left to right): Lesley Gorton of the Association of Charity Shops, Brian Powell of Powell publishing, Peter Chisnall of Braintree council, comedienne Amy Lame and Gary Hawkes from Farleigh hospice

The Essex authority was singled out for its work with local charity Farleigh hospice. Braintree allowed Farleigh to sell goods from empty council houses and bulky waste collections in its eight shops around the county.

Braintree also provided financial and promotional support to the hospice, by sponsoring its bag for life and running a textile recycling scheme.

Braintree
The award was presented by comedienne Amy Lame to Peter Chisnall, environmental services manager of Braintree District Council.

Mr Chisnall said: “My Council was delighted to win this award, it is the culmination of three years of hard work building up the partnership with Farleigh Hospice and is an example of the importance we place in working with our community.”

Lekha Klouda, executive secretary of the Association of Charity Shops said: “We are delighted that Braintree District Council has been given recognition for the fantastic support they give to the charity shops.”

The award was judged by a panel including Joy Blizzard, chair of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee, and Rob Mynard, a waste policy advisor for Defra.

Support
Ms Klouda was keen to stress that many local authorities, including the runners up, had provided important support.

Examples of the services provided by other nominees included promoting charity shops to householders in recycling information and paying recycling and re-use credits to charity shops.

Ms Klouda said: “We are very pleased that so many local authorities are supportive of the work of charity shops, which we estimate are diverting several hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste away from landfill every year by their recycling and reuse work.

“By working together, charity shops can profit from the support of local authorities and local authorities can benefit from increases in their recycling figures and a reduction in the amount of waste going to landfill.”