Furniture Reuse
Many organisations have been established in recent years to take in larger household items such as furniture or electrical items, clean them up and send them to new homes in the community. Examples of successful projects are detailed below.
Voluntary Service Lisburn - Reusing furniture and Electrical Goods
Voluntary Service Lisburn (VSL) reuses electrical goods and furniture for the benefit of the local community.
VSL collects unwanted domestic white goods such as cookers, washing machines, dryers and small electrical items and repairs and refurbishes them for sale at low cost to those on low incomes.
Financial backing from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency's (NIEA) Community Waste Innovation Fund has enabled the project to provide an important service which is recycling goods which would otherwise have gone to landfill.
With the ongoing recession putting so much pressure on people's household budgets, VSL are providing useful goods that the local community can re-use. It manages a furniture restoration project which collects and restores unwanted items which can be sold at a low cost to those on low incomes.
Not only is this of benefit to local people, it is also reducing unnecessary landfill at the same time.
80/20 Scheme - Newry
The innovative 80/20 wood recycling project in Newry collects waste wood and furniture from homes and businesses in the area and is recycled, repaired and sold to the local community. Income is generated from the charges made by the waste wood collection service and from sales of wood and wood products made by the 80/20 trainees. Fees are also generated from the provision of training and day care places for people with a disability in the area.
The 80/20 project is an excellent example of a community enterprise which is delivering multiple benefits for the area which it serves. Not only does it offer training opportunities for those who might find it difficult, for whatever reasons, to move into employment, but it also it helps to improve the environment by reusing wood products which might otherwise end up in land fill sites and provides a source of cheap wood products for those who live in Neighbourhood Renewal areas.
