The award was first revealed last month at the launch of the London Waste and Recycling Board's (LWaRB) business plan for 2010, making the South London organisation the fourth recipient of funding from the Board's £84 million funding reserves (see letsrecycle.com story).
“This innovative project ticks all our boxes – reusing waste, cutting emissions and bringing jobs and real social benefits to the capital”
James Cleverly, LWaRB
The £500,000 award to charity BioRegional, which will be issued over three years, will be used to develop a centre for unwanted building materials collected from housing developments and DIY stores, where they will be sorted for resale to members of the public and the building trade.
BioRegional is leading the project and is working with reuse charity Croydon-based Appliance Reuse Centre (ARC) to deliver the centre, which will result in the creation of four new jobs, a training programme for 40 young and unemployed trainees each year and intends to divert 3,500 tonnes of waste from landfill each year.
Commenting on the funding, Jonathan Essex, reclaimed materials manager at BioRegional said: “We are thrilled that LWARB has supported our new joint social enterprise with ARC selling used but still useful construction materials – helping to address market failure in the reuse sector.”
Once complete, the facility will be called the Reuse It Yourself centre (ReIY), and will be used to sell items such as bricks and tiles. Working in partnership with ARC, BioRegional aims to use this working example to kick start a network of three centres across London.
This is the fourth project supported by the London Waste and Recycling Board. Others include the Recycle for London promotional campaign, furniture reuse charity Trinity and food waste charity FareShare.
James Cleverly, chair of the LWaRB, said: “Last year London created a massive 9.7million tonnes of construction and demolition waste. Around half of this was recycled but there is still much more we need to do to tackle the rest which largely ends up dumped in landfill sites. This innovative project ticks all our boxes – reusing waste, cutting emissions and bringing jobs and real social benefits to the capital.”
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