Recycling minister Lord Henley has visited Recycling Lives site in Preston to find out how the organisations commercial WEEE and metals recycling activities support its charitable activities.
The visit last week (August 16) involved Lord Henley being given a tour of Recycling Lives centre, where he met formerly homeless and unemployed people who live in the charitys Residents Centre.
He was also shown around the 15-acre Recycling Park, where waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), end-of-life vehicles and metals are all recycled. The site is home to Englands first dedicated flat panel display recycling operation, which was unveiled in March 2011 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Here, the minister was also shown how much used furniture has been collected by Recycling Lives charity schemes for resale in the Recycling Lives charity shop and donation to low-income households. Other commercial services run by the company include skip hire and plastics reprocessing.
During the tour, Lord Henley also visited the organisations Essex Street headquarters, where he had a chance to talk to Recycling Lives founder Steve Jackson, its chief executive Charles Jackson and its non-executive chairman, Professor Steven Broomhead.
Homelessness
There, the minister was given a presentation about how Recycling Lives has combined its recycling operations with its charitable activity to extend both its commercial offering and its work to combat homelessness and worklessness.
Lord Henley expressed his admiration for the work that Recycling Lives has undertaken and the efforts that the organisation has made to deliver cohesive, community-focused and sustainable charity solutions.
He said: If we are to move to a zero waste economy where old things are put to new uses, everyone needs to play their part. Recycling Lives is an inspiring example of just that where the Big Society, community leadership and local action is not only improving peoples lives, but recycling and reusing items that would otherwise be wasted.
Steve Jackson, founder of Recycling Lives, said it was a real pleasure to welcome Lord Henley to visit the organisation, and praised his in-depth understanding of the waste and recycling industry.
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Our aim was to demonstrate to Lord Henley that the Recycling Lives model, which focuses on making charity more sustainable and ensuring that Corporate Social Responsibility is a key factor for all businesses, is a really effective approach.
He added: With leading companies such as BAE Systems and E.ON choosing to award their contracts to Recycling Lives, were clearly doing something right and were given commercial entities a chance to make a difference.
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