Resource Awards 2008

The vital role the community sector plays in promoting sustainability was again recognised at the Resource Awards 2008 in London. Sponsored by Novelis, Yell, Berryman and Biffa, this year’s awards ceremony was bigger and better than ever before, with the addition of a new Kerbside Project award and an excellent range of entries competing for a recycled glass award and the all important prizes of £2,500

Yell Best Partnership Project
Cheshire Furniture Re-use Forum

An impressive list of partners and a high diversion yield of a wide range of materials, made Cheshire Furniture Re-use Forum a clear winner of the Yell Partnership Project award.
Cheshire County Council and Cheshire’s community waste projects partnered up in 2002.
Initially funded and led by the council, now 80 per cent of funding comes from the Cheshire Waste Partnership and 20 per cent through project members. For the partnership it is a means of increasing the amount of reusable bulky household waste diverted from landfill; while the furniture reuse projects get more reusable furniture to meet the growing demand of people on low incomes.
The project employs 38 paid workers and has over 240 volunteers – many of whom have learning or behavioural issues. What is exceptional about the Cheshire Forum is the breath of its partners: 14 not-for-profit community organisations and three from the public sector. The community groups include: Balcon Community Trust; Chester Aid to the Homeless; Christian Concern, Crewe; Furnaround, Macclesfield; Furniture Finders of Winsford; North Staffordshire Furniture Mine; North Shropshire Furniture Scheme; St Vincent de Paul, Chester and Ellsemore Port Furniture Unit; Salvation Army Ellesmere Port and Northwich; Save the Family; Tree of Life Centre, Wythenshawe; Wesley Community Furniture, and Wythenshawe Development Trust.
According to Ged Edwards, Project Coordinator, “the project enables local authorities to strengthen local projects and help provide them with the means to become a sustainable part of the waste solution. Furthermore, it enables community projects to fulfil to a greater degree their social mission and at the same time contribute to the regeneration of their areas, particularly through social inclusion activities (redistribution and volunteering) and training. As such, the Forum partnership achieves far more together than the sum of its constituent parts.”
Last year, the Forum reused 663 tonnes of bulky household waste and electrical appliances.
On receipt of the award, Ged said “everyone was absolutely delighted to received the award”, and that the Resource Award donation would go a long way towards funding the Forum’s 2008-09 training programme.

Biffa’s Climate Conscious Award
Proper Job

At each stage of its 13-year development Proper Job has kept the environment and its impact on the environment as the number one priority, so it was an obvious choice for the Climate Conscious Award
Having set up in the early 90s as one of the first community composting projects in the UK, it has since inspired many other groups. Over the years, Proper Job has expanded and now makes household kerbside collections and commercial collections of over 18 materials, including paper, cardboard, glass, metals, printer toners, wood, batteries, compost, furniture and paint. At the same time, it promotes market gardening; runs a wholefood café, which uses the garden’s organic vegetables and plants grown with its own compost; and lobbies for climate action work such as persuading local authorities to adopt innovative schemes like paying reuse credits and employing a community composting coordinator.
According to founders Richard Gomme and Nicky Scott, two of 20 part time workers and 18 regular volunteers, Proper Job “has always taken the most energy or resource efficient option when making decisions and setting policies and has even offered a bike mileage allowance to encourage staff to cycle to work”.
However, last year it went one step further when RE4D (Renewable Energy for Devon) conducted an energy use and efficiency audit and renewables assessment at Proper Job’s Reuse, Recycling and Composting Centre and the shop/café in town. As a result, and because maximum energy and efficiency measures were already in place, Proper Job was able to successfully apply for £25,000 funding to install 4kw (30sq metres) of solar photo voltaic panels. It now even counts itself as an electricity exporter.
Add to that its bio diesel pickup truck, using scrap wood for heating, a compost loo, giving out free energy lightbulbs to customers and a re-fillable bottle scheme in shop for liquid cleaning products, and you can see how lightly the organisation is treading its carbon foot.
“Proper Job is blazing a trail of inspiration,” notes Gomme. “It has overcome great obstacles, moved mountains and has never given up! Lots of dedicated people work together as a great team for something we all believe in – making a positive difference, finding creative solutions to our common challenges and problems and inspiring other people to take action.”
He continued: “We traded in LETS currency 12 years before the Totnes Pound, were the first Community Repaint scheme in the South West and were among the first to use sheep’s wool insulation bats. In order to support a fledgling idea, expensive, but ethical choices were made. We are now creating a centre for combined community networks – bringing together Devon’s Community Recycling and Composting and Climate Action Networks in one shared office.”
Having won the Resource Award for being Climate Conscious, the organisation says it will be spending the money as match funding to draw down additional resource to support climate action and awareness raising work. This will include developing an interactive website and maximising community benefits.

Berryman Glass Kerbside Project
Mid Devon Community Recycling

A recent addition to the Resource Awards, the Kerbside Project category attracted a good level of entries. However, the scale and range of Mid Devon Community Recycling’s operation made it a worthy winner.
Founded in 1996, Mid Devon Community Recycling (MDCR) is funded 47 per cent through the sale of materials collected on its household and commercial collection rounds, 38 per cent from a local authority contract, 10 per cent from commercial collections and five per cent from grants.
It employs 32 full time, and five part time people, and also has five volunteers with special needs that work together to collect paper, glass, cardboard, aluminium, textiles, printer cartridges, tetrapaks, steel, plastics and batteries from nearly 33,000 households. In the last year alone, the organisation diverted over 6,000 tonnes from landfill.
What impressed the Resource judges most was how MDCR works tirelessly to reduce the amount of waste in Devon, even adding low profit items like tetrapaks to its collection round to help people reduce the volume of the waste and make the impact and value of recycling much more visible.
Numeracy and literacy training is given to all staff, along with first aid training to drivers, an NVQ in Recycling to all manual staff and Health and Safety in the Workplace to all supervisors. Indeed, MDCR is keen to support its volunteers: “Since starting to work for us, four of our learning disabled volunteers have moved out of institutions and into their own flats. Their carers attribute this success largely to the work we do in raising their confidence and self esteem,” says Ken Orchard, Project Coordinator. “They love working here and we love working with them.” In addition to the volunteers, 40 per cent of the board is made up of representatives of the community and nearly 90 per cent of the community is involved as service users.
Key to the project’s success is that for 10 years, MDCR has worked under a partnership agreement with the local authority. The relationship has now been formalised in a contract, although Ken says they are still trying to “run it in the spirit of a partnership”. The organisation is also currently in the midst of negotiating a similar arrangement with the local health trust.
As Ken noted in his acceptance speech, having doggedly persisted with nominating themselves for a Resource award, it has, at last, paid off, and MDCR is a good example of what the community sector can achieve at the kerbside. With its winnings, the project is buying equipment for its planned eco education unit, which will form part of children’s experience when their school visits the site.

Novelis Community Recycling Project of the Year
Food For All

London-based Food For All was presented with the Community Recycling Project of the Year for its innovative work in diverting food from landfill.
Founded nearly a decade ago, thanks to Big Lottery Funding, Food For All’s mission is to divert the surplus food in and around London to those who needed it: homeless people, those on low incomes and people with mental and physical disabilities.
The organisation, based in Kings Cross, works by collecting surplus food that is still usable from food businesses, such as supermarkets and local shops, and passing it on. As Coordinator Peter O’Grady explains: “All fruit and vegetables have a display by date; when that date is short, the supermarkets skip them. It’s a wasteful system in a country where people are suffering from poor diet due to financial or educational reasons or addictions, but we can make a difference, we can fill a gap in the business world and fill a gap for marginalised people.”
Two rickshaws and one van, collect the food. It is then sorted into useable, compostable, and food for animals that live in a nearby animal sanctuary. The useable food is turned into meals, which are then distributed to the local community.
Food For All manages to divert at least one can load of good food from landfill everyday. Not only that, but 800 disadvantaged people get free, healthy meals daily six days a week. This is all managed with just one part time employee, Paul O’Grady, 28 hard-working volunteers and Camden Council’s Youth Offending Team whose kids carry out their community service hours by serving meals to the homeless at the Kings Cross Resource Centre.
The project also includes an eco garden (www.ecogarden.org.uk) that is used to educate children about food waste and the environment in general. Nearly 200 school groups visited the eco garden last year.
O’Grady was thrilled to win the Resource award, not least because the money won will provide the organisation with another rickshaw and, therefore, even more potential to help. “I wasn’t expecting us to win because there were just so many projects from all across the country doing amazing things, so it was that much more exciting to win!” he exclaimed.

Individual Contribution to the Community Waste Sector
Nicky Scott

Founder of Proper Job and all round community good guy, it was Resource’s pleasure to thank and recognise Nicky Scott for all his hard work in the sector by awarding him the Individual Contribution award.
Nicky has worked tirelessly to champion community composting and the value of networking since the early 1990s and inspired many others to take action on reuse, recycling, composting and now 'climate' action in their communities. A founding member and ex-Chair of the Community Composting Network, he is involved at local, regional, national and international level, and is widely recognised as a leading expert in his field.
A vocal campaigner on exemptions for community groups under the Animal By-Product Regulations, Nicky isn’t afraid to innovate and has been experimenting with systems to compost biodegradable and compostable carrier bags. His guide to composting: Composting for All is a modern classic, and Scotty’s Hot Box – a heat retaining compost box – is an innovative solution to one-site composting.
Once working out of the most stylish shed in the country, Nicky has more recently been addressing the carbon issue and bringing a wide range of environmental groups together under one roof. He was a popular and deserving winner whose influence has been far-reaching.