However, the London Community Recycling Network (LCRN), which will set-up and administer the network, has said that, despite the award, the project is unlikely to lead to London local authorities offering free collections of bulky waste.
Mayor Boris Johnson, the former chair of the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWaRB), and actress and activist Joanna Lumley OBE today officially announced the funding award at an event held outside City Hall in Central London.
The £8 million is being awarded through a mixture of grants and loans. And, under the arrangement, LCRN is required to drawn in an additional £2.5 million in match-funding, although it aims to bring in around £4 million help fund the network.
The money is set to be used to establish a ‘London Reuse Network’ made up of six sub-regions across the capital, where local authorities will work with charities to help collect and sort reusable items.
Announcing the award, Mr Johnson said: “It is a common sense use of our natural resources that we provide ways for people to hand in items they no longer need, but which still have plenty of useful life in them.
“This funding is really welcome news, helping to create a service for Londoners to do exactly that and help to slash the mountain of waste being sent unnecessarily to landfill and cut the heavy economic costs of doing so.”
The project aims to divert 17,000 tonnes of reusable household waste from landfill in the first two years of the network.
In the Mayor’s Draft Municipal Waste Strategy, published in January 2010, the Mayor identified a goal of reusing or repairing 40,000 tonnes of material-a-year, rising to 120,000 tonnes-a-year by 2031 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Funding
The funding represents one of the largest awards made to date by LWaRB, which has £84 million to administer to recycling and waste initiatives in the city.
Reuse, along with flats recycling, was outlined as one the organisation’s priorities for the current year in its Business Plan for 2010/11 (see letsrecycle.com story). And, reuse organisation Trinity was the first recipient of LWaRB funding, when it received £100,000 in October 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, despite its support for reuse projects, the head of London’s reuse charity organisation told letsrecycle.com that the LWaRB funding was unlikely to precipitate local authorities offering free collections for bulky waste and furniture.
Matthew Thomson, chief executive of LCRN, said today: “We will see a harmonisation over the next five years but it is not for us to say whether councils will charge for collections or not. However, I think it is unlikely with the current economic climate that this will lead to free collections.”
Mr Thomson added that furniture that could not be reused or recycled would be sent to alternative treatment methods, with biomass being acknowledged as a potential outlet for waste wood.
The first cluster project set to be established by the LCRN is with the Western Riverside Waste Authority (WRWA), which manages waste for the London boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham, Lambeth, Wandsworth and the Royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
This will include the creation of reuse network workshops operating as a training centre for the refurbishment of white goods and furniture, with over 40 young people being taken on for training in the first year of the project.
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