To support recycle week we thought we would ask Scrapstore to write a blog telling us what they do with the ‘rubbish’ that we send their way! Nikki DiGiovanni tells us everything we need to know about Scrapatore and the work they do….
Myakka are among 3,500 businesses donating their unwanted but still useful waste to scrapstores for creative reuse. Myakka don’t have a use for the strong string-like material that keeps their beautiful fair-trade furniture safe in transit so instead of it going into landfill they have an arrangement with their local scrapstore.
The local scrapstore to their Wincanton head office is Yeovil scrapstore; like many scrapstores they have a thousand other similarly quirky off-cuts and business by products from their local area.
Most scrapstores provide membership schemes whereby users pay an annual subscription for access to the materials. Some make a nominal charge for materials, while others offer them free to ‘paid up’ members.
In the UK there are about 90 scrapstores who offer a whole range of exciting materials in a kaleidoscope of colours to thousands of community groups from Registered Childminders, Out-of-school clubs, Activity Clubs, Scouts, Brownies, Cadets, Respite Carers to Arts and Crafts Clubs, Colleges, Families, Artists, Schools and Pre-Schools.
ScrapstoresUK is the national charity created by the scrapstore community to support and represent them, to be a common voice with the media and national businesses and to be a facilitator to share the knowledge spread out across the scrapstore community.
ScrapstoresUK National Coordinator Nikki DiGiovanni said; “Scrapstores are exciting places full of the left over bits from businesses and manufacturing processes, however our real treasure is the wonderful volunteers who support up to 74,000 community groups to divert over 10,500,000 kilos of resources from being landfilled. Then of course there are the amazingly creative people who use the resources in the most imaginative and artistic way.”
Every scrapstore, no matter the size, is independent, run by a small but committed group of staff, many or all of which are often volunteers.
To find out more about how you can help scrapstoresUK or to find your nearest scrapstore contact: The Main scrapstoresUK helpline: ( 0844 997 8000 or visit their Website: www.scrapstoresuk.org Email: info@scrapstoresuk.org Twitter: @scrapstoresUK
