The Circular Communities Reuse Consortium is happy to celebrate the New Year 2023! With a big thank you to our members, who make all of our work possible and saving waste from landfill, and the Housing Associations and Local Authorities we work with to provide easy access to a range of quality assured reuse furniture and household goods from local providers.
The Reuse Consortium has achieved several amazing milestones in 2022 and have big plans are for the year ahead.
Reflecting on 2022:
2022 was an excellent year for the Reuse Consortium and the best year of trading ever, with a 27% increase in trading compared to 2021 (£644,000 in 2022) and a 15% increase in the kilograms of furniture rescued from a potential fate in the landfill (257,000 kg in 2022).
The Reuse Consortium also hit a major milestone in 2022, with over one million kilograms of furniture being saved from waste since our inception in November 2016, equivalent to over 3,000 tonnes of CO2. The Circular Communities Scotland team is extremely proud of this accomplishment, which shows what’s possible when local authorities and housing associations work with our community-based Consortium members to provide low-cost, high-quality furniture to their residents.
We now have seven local authorities and one housing association buying through the Reuse Consortium, with Perth & Kinross Council completing a highly successful pilot project this year and becoming an ongoing buyer, supplied by our Dundee-based Consortium member Transform Community Development. Highland Council’s trading partnership with New Start Highland also continued to go from strength to strength in 2022, after Highland Council became a buyer in December 2021.
Looking ahead to 2023:
In 2023, we hope to continue to expand the Reuse Consortium to enable more local authorities and housing associations to discover the many environmental, social and financial benefits of sourcing reuse furniture to furnish their properties. Nicola, our Projects and Reuse Consortium Manager, is already in discussion with Stirling Council and Scottish Borders Council to begin pilot projects, with Transition Stirling poised to join the Reuse Consortium as a new sub-contracted supplier. We are also exploring a new opportunity to supply reuse furniture to universities, through a potential partnership with Glasgow Caledonian University to furnish their student residences with reuse white goods.
If you are interested in finding out more about the Reuse Consortium and how you can become a buyer, contact Nicola at nicola@circularcommunities.scot.