Wednesday 9 August 2017

A Rubbish Day!

I do hereby solemnly swear not to litter this post with puns.....😁 Enough of this silliness.

Yesterday I spent the perfect afternoon with fellow Sussex Green Living friends having a tour around the Leatherhead Community Recycling Site and Re-Use shop. Now this might not sound like the average person's idea of a fun day out, but believe me when I say I was in my element! I mentioned in a recent post that we met one of the managers of the site by chance at an unrelated event last month where we had our stand [he lives in my home town]. He was very interested in what we're trying to do despite the whole thing being run on a voluntary basis and extremely enthusiastic about green issues. He invited us along and we took him up on his offer.

Now I'm no business woman, but there's no point being too idealistic and naive under these circumstances. Money talks and if we can get a similar venture, such as the Re-Use shop off the ground here, it needs to be financially viable both in what it makes sales wise and in terms of the amount of tonnage it could divert from landfill. Thankfully we were able to bring a representative from our council along with us to gather the pertinent information. West Sussex officially needs to increase its recycling rate to meet the targets it's been set and they have a big meeting next week to decide what steps they're going to take to bring this improvement about. The Leatherhead shop has been a huge success on all the necessary fronts so here's hoping.

I loved poking about in the shop and they've requisitioned a redundant shipping container, put carpet down and are using it for additional storage. The staff have been trained on what to look for in the skips and gradually more of the public are bringing their stuff to the shop first to see if it's suitable for sale before just chucking it in. In the time we were there it was a constant flow of new stock and people buying other things. It's clearly well supported. I took a few candid shots




Prices are very reasonable. In fact everyone of us went home with our own personal treasure. The lady from the council bought the orange stool below for a thrifty £2 as she is a keen upcycler. As for moi....seeing as I'd been kindly given a lift space was at a premium. I wrenched open the GBT purse and parted with a princely 20 pennies for the two lovely little baskets which will make the perfect addition to my dollshouse!



Arilx


4 comments:

  1. I wish we had that sort of thing here.

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  2. I spy a fellow dolls house owner! It sounds such a good idea upcycling things back into the community. Charity shops do their best but have an ultra motive of course. My daughter who runs two always complains of the junk, including dirty clothes that they are left with. Most go to the 'rag' man but there are many big items that need to go to the tip...

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    Replies
    1. Quite. Having done my time sorting jumble some of the stuff is like brand new and some of it should be burnt frankly. Some of the stuff at the tip shop looked like it had come straight from the shop shelf. I've had my dollshouse for years...I shall have to have a nose around your blog to see yours. I do enjoy the hobby. Arilx

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