London West, UK - The London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) has a budget of £84m to spend over three years to improve waste management in the capital.

Mayor Boris Johnson and actress Joanna Lumley OBE today announced £8m funding from LWARB to create the world's largest 'reuse network', helping household items find a new home rather than being chucked away. The funding will go to the London Community Resource Network, a charitable social enterprise who will set up the network to address the 65,000 tonnes of household products are thrown out by Londoners each year, ending up in costly landfill sites and adding both to carbon emissions and council bills, when most of them could be reused or repaired.

The London Reuse Network will be made up of 'clusters' of organisations , including local authorities and charities who will work together to deliver an easy-to-access and consistent reuse service to residents and businesses within their area. It will collect, store, refurbish and sell on everything from furniture, books, carpets and bikes through to cookers and fridges. It aims to divert 17,000 tonnes of reusable products from landfill over the first two years of the project saving over 80,000 tonnes of carbon emissions. It will provide a single 'reuse hotline' and web portal serving the whole of London. By 2015 the network aims to be diverting over a million items from the waste stream every year, training thousands and employing hundreds of people.

Projects funded to date, include the Recycle for London public awareness campaign; Trinity, a charity that restores and sells reused furniture; ReIY, a centre selling reclaimed building material (organised by BioRegional Reclaimed); FareShare, a charity committed to diverting unused but still edible food from the waste stream and redistributing it to those who need it most; and £5 million fund for Local Authorities to improve recycling performance from flats in London.

Press release from London.gov.uk

Story Type:  News

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