Yell Partnership Award: Pembrokeshire FRAME

In the interest of a recycling project for schools, Pembrokeshire County Council and furniture recycling charity, Pembrokeshire FRAME, have been working together for nearly a decade. Their strong relationship ensured they scooped The Partnership Award

Some 10 years ago, FRAME, a reuse and recycling organisation that provides work and training placements for individuals with learning disabilities and mental health issues, approached Pembrokeshire County Council about recycling services in local schools. A burgeoning relationship between the two parties meant a memorandum of understanding was signed in 2003, which marked the beginning of a formal partnership
and eventually led to a contractual arrangement for county-wide bulky household waste collection. Daniel Sims, Business Services Manager for FRAME, highlights the main benefits of the agreement: “In out-sourcing its bulky household waste collection service, the council sought not only a provider of a collection service and a reuse/recycling service, but an organisation that could provide added value in terms of social gain. Anybody with a disability has the opportunity to have a work and training placement within the organisation. We have individuals training to participate within normal working life. Getting the contract with Pembrokeshire County Council allowed five of those individuals on the training scheme to actually get jobs.”

Jill Jack, Waste Strategy Officer for Pembrokeshire County Council, agrees that the partnership works for everyone. In addition to the social benefits, she notes that in working with FRAME: “The council also provides a service to its residents, and in doing so is able to improve its recycling and reuse performance.”

Sims acknowledges, however, that a partnership of this kind is not without its complexities: “The biggest challenges have been learning each other’s business and ensuring our foundations are robust enough to provide a smooth and responsive service,” he says. But this pales in light of the incentives: “The biggest rewards have been creating employment opportunities and the recognition that FRAME can actually deliver contracts and deliver them well.”

The team at FRAME is delighted to have won the Partnership Award. “It feels absolutely awesome to have our partnership acknowledged,” Sims explains. “Perhaps it will send out a clear message that the third sector does not have to go around with its begging bowl. If community groups get their act together, they can operate professionally, deliver contracts and become sustainable.”

Adam Billiald, Environment Manager for Yell in the UK, commented: “As a business that takes sustainable practices seriously, we are pleased to help support and draw attention to the incredible local community recycling projects that are crucial to driving sustainable development across the country.”

Individual Achievement in Community Recycling: Worku Lakew

Managing Director of Tower Hamlets Community Recycling Consortium (THCRC), Worku Lakew has been the driving force behind a great many community waste projects. It was an honour, then, to recognise his work with Resource’s Individual Achievement Award

Worku Lakew has been involved with environmental matters for nearly 20 years, since joining the London Borough of Ealing as Head of Community Development in 1990. One of the major initiatives he undertook there was helping local companies ‘go green’, and after developing a ‘Going Green’ business guide, he started working with other organisations looking at issues like waste generation, energy conservation and water treatment. In his own words, he’s “not looked back since”.

Responsible for pioneering a number of collection schemes, Lakew was at the forefront of high-rise recycling collection. “The waste companies were not really addressing it and the community sector took the lead in making high-rise happen,” he says. “I must say, it quickly became very successful, so much so that we got the waste management industry interested in it, and they took it on board and it’s now become an entire industry.”

However, despite the victories of high-rise, Lakew’s environmental career to date has not been without its challenges. “I was also involved with PCVs [pedestrian controlled vehicles, where operators walk beside, rather than riding on, collection vehicles] in Haringey some time ago,” he explains. “They were initially very successful and spread like wildfire in various parts of the borough and throughout the country, but it’s very difficult for community groups to create regime change in terms of technology and equipment and collection without any investment support. Because we couldn’t invest in maintenance and repair, the waste industry at the time wasn’t interested.” But he looks back on this experience with optimism: “We learnt our lesson there. Part of the task of community groups is to kick-start the system, and I believe we might be entering a second wave of source separation, and with that PCVs might be looked at again.”

Receiving the Individual Achievement in Community Recycling award came as something of a surprise for Lakew: “It was entirely unexpected,” he says. “Of course, I’m touched and humbled. I always feel there are people out there more deserving than I, so winning this award just encourages me to work even harder.”

Novelis Community Waste Project of the Year: Tendring Reuse & Employment Enterprise (T.R.E.E.)

Essex-based T.R.E.E was presented with the Community Waste Project of the Year award for making a difference to the lives of neighbourhood individuals, as well as the environment

Essex, April 2004: Many organisations exist that offer reused and recycled furniture, but there’s no service in place to accommodate the local community with quality electrical goods. Enter T.R.E.E, a company that grew from this gap in the market to offer electrical wares, minimise the amount of white goods going to landfill, create work experience and placement opportunities and, more recently, branch into making new and graded stock available at affordable prices.

Operating from three warehouses and three shops in Clacton-on-Sea town centre, T.R.E.E regularly takes donations of second-hand furniture and white goods plus deliveries of new stock in its shops, and its drivers take collections from and make deliveries to customers on a daily basis. Its 22 staff and 45 volunteers constantly work on stock, maintaining, testing and cleaning products, preparing them for display on the shop floor for sale.

“Our engineers are all fully qualified and have a number of years’ experience in electrical and refrigeration engineering, specialising in Hotpoint washing machines, re-gassing and repairs of refrigeration,” says Mark Penn, T.R.E.E’s Chief Executive, who himself started out as a volunteer and is affectionately known as the ‘International White Van Man’. “Training is an ongoing process and everyone is always learning. Over the years that T.R.E.E. has been operating, the staff have grown with the company and gained hands-on experience in reuse
and recycling.”

Growth and experience is the very essence of T.R.E.E, which operates training schemes for three local secondary schools and their pupils, as well as encouraging members of the community to get involved with the organisation. “The benefits that have arisen from our programme have been fantastic,” says Penn. “By making available quality goods and services not available in the commercial sector at affordable rates, the local community volunteers have had the chance to build self-esteem, confidence and motivation.”

And, thanks to the efforts of their volunteers and work experience placement candidates, T.R.E.E managed to collect 10,780 items (which may have otherwise ended up in landfill) and achieve a total reduction in CO2 of 5,172,720 kilogrammes between November 2008 and October 2009 alone. The organisation has also managed to obtain reuse and recycling credits at the full value of £52.34 from its local authority.

On being named Community Waste Project of the Year, Penn says: “It’s great that everyone’s hard work here is acknowledged. However, it’s not just that T.R.E.E. has been recognised, but it sets an example to private industries that the third sector is able to deliver quality service whilst making a difference within the community.”