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Glasgow projects join three-way race for top waste awardSeptember 24, 2008 Two Glasgow projects aimed at helping the local community to reduce waste will do battle on October 7, to take home a prestigious Scottish Waste and Resources Award. Spruce Carpets and Community Can Cycle have both been shortlisted in the ‘Best Community Sector Initiative’ category, alongside Edinburgh project Changeworks. Spruce Carpets is the UK’s first carpet recycling social enterprise. Spruce conserves resources by recycling flooring destined for landfill and provides a low-cost refurbished product for people on low incomes. This in turn creates training and employment opportunities through the processing, resale and fitting of the flooring. The project’s Chief Executive, Izzie Johnston, commented: “We are delighted to be in the running for this award, which is a real testament to the hard work of all our staff, volunteers and the local community in which we serve. “Last year, we diverted 70 tonnes of waste from landfill disposal and helped over 1000 houses in the Glasgow area carpet their homes at an affordable cost. We are determined to increase these figures in 2008.” Community Can Cycle operates an aluminium and steel can and glass bottle collection service, which it recycles and sells to reprocessing companies to help fund their bicycle repair and refurbishment workshop. This enables them to provide a free bicycle repair service for over 2,300 local children which encourages them to ‘get on your bike’, keep fit and out of trouble. Founder and Project Development Manager Jim O’Donnell said: “Getting to this stage is fantastic news for the charity and the community. Boosting the charity’s profile encourages more people to become involved and helps us to become more successful, so it’s great to be in the limelight. “To be nominated for such a prestigious award shows just how far we have come in eight years.” The awards are being led by Eventful Scotland, a partnership with includes the Scottish Government and the Community Recycling Network for Scotland (CRNS). The winners will be announced at the Scottish Waste and Resources Conference and Annual Dinner, which will be held at Glasgow’s Hilton Hotel on Wednesday, 8 October. The event is being organised by Eventful Scotland, in partnership with IWM Business Services. Awards will be presented in the following categories:
John Summers, Chief Executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful and Chair of Eventful Scotland, said: “As recently reported, recycling in Scotland is at an all time high and that is down to the commitment and hard work of a wide range of stakeholders across Scotland in the public, private and voluntary sectors. “These awards will allow some of those organisations to be rewarded for their hard work. Once again the quality of nominations has been extremely high. Coupled with the Government’s commitment to moving towards a Zero Waste Scotland, we are expecting the Awards dinner to be an exciting night and I wish all the shortlisted organisations the very best of luck.”
All entries had to demonstrate best practice and innovation based around the following waste hierarchy:
The purpose of the Scottish Waste and Resources Awards is to acknowledge, reward and celebrate those organisations that have shown an outstanding contribution, through best practice and innovation, to the Scottish waste, recycling and resource management sectors. For more information about the conference please visit www.eventful-scotland.org.uk |
