Louise Bradley, Derbyshire County Council; Stacey Parry, HW Martin Waste Ltd; Craig Capper, HW Martin; Kerry Price, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust; Councillor Carolyn Renwick, our Cabinet Member for Infrastructure and Environment; Mark Heaven, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust.
The re-use shop opened in March at our household waste recycling centre in Bolsover. It’s proving very popular and in the first 6 months has sold 11,000 items and raised £41,000. Proceeds from these sales go towards the running costs of the shop and profits go to charity.
The shop is stocked with items collected at 8 of our 9 recycling centres and is run by contractors H W Martin who operate these 8 recycling centres on our behalf. From furniture and homeware to garden equipment, books, CDs and vinyl, it offers a host of pre-loved items ready for a new home.
Our Cabinet Member for Infrastructure and Environment, Councillor Carolyn Renwick, said:
“We’d seen examples of councils elsewhere in the UK operating re-use shops successfully and it’s excellent news that ours is proving very popular.
“These first months have shown an appetite among our residents to purchase items at low cost and reuse them. Reuse is even better for the environment than recycling as it means items can be put to good use without having to use energy to re-process them and turn them into something new.
“The results at Bolsover are giving us confidence that opening further re-use shops at other recycling centres across the county will be popular with our residents. We are hoping to open another one in Ashbourne next year.
“It’s also a great thing to be able to give the profits to a charity supporting our wildlife and so helping the environment in this way too.”
Mark Heaven, Head of Fundraising at Derbyshire Wildlife Trust said:
“We are delighted that Derbyshire County Council have selected Derbyshire Wildlife Trust as Charity of the Year for this initiative. This generous pledge to donate funding will support our nature recovery plans and rewilding projects across the county.
“We are incredibly fortunate to have developed strategic partnerships with lots of local and regional businesses in this way who share our concern for the environment. Through their membership, donations, fundraising and ongoing support, we can achieve more for wildlife together than we would on our own.”
Adam Smith Director of HW Martin Waste Ltd said:
"The Bolsover re-use shop has so far been a great success and we are thrilled to be working with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust in supporting their efforts around nature recovery and protecting our local wildlife.”
All goods at the re-use shop are checked to ensure products are high quality before being displayed for sale and customers can take a look around the shop when the recycling centre is open.
Typical types of goods sold in reuse shops are:
- furniture
- crockery, pots, cutlery, kitchen goods
- books, CDs, records, DVDs – all should be originals and not copies
- ornaments
- pictures, picture frames and pieces of art
- garden furniture, garden tools, garden ornaments
- premium clothing and footwear – donated directly to the shop
- toys and board games
Purchases can be made using cash or electronically.
Items brought to any of our recycling centres, except Waterswallows in Buxton which is run by a different contractor, may be set aside by staff for resale in the shop, but anyone with items they believe might be suitable can hand them to staff on-site who will be happy to take a look.