Pioneering recycling project nominated for top award

Jun 24 2010 by Eva Ketley, North Wales Weekly News

A PIONEERING recycling scheme is in line to win a national award for excellence.

Masterminded by housing association Cartrefi Conwy, the project to recycle old kitchen and bathroom units is being hailed as a UK first and has reached the finals of the Constructing Excellence in Wales Awards.

It has also been nominated for the Conwy Regeneration Award in the Pride of Conwy Awards.

As part of Cartrefi Conwy’s £30m housing improvement programme, nearly 4,000 kitchens and bathrooms are being salvaged instead of being dumped in a landfill site.

And the Association is working with Llandudno Junction based Crest Cooperative and contractor G Purchase to drive it forward.

Andrew Bowden, chief executive of Cartrefi Conwy, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to be nominated for this prestigious award. This is an innovative project and to receive this recognition is a dream ticket for Cartrefi Conwy and it’s putting us on the map.

“One of the things we have learned is that tenants want peace and quiet on their estates, they don’t want skips full of rubbish which can cause fly-tipping or health and safety problems.

“This project enables the materials from the old kitchens and bathrooms to be taken away with as little disturbance to their properties as possible.

“As a result, the estates don’t look like a building site.”

The project is expected to create around 200 jobs and training positions.

Rod Williams, operations manager at Crest, said: “For a social enterprise like Crest, being shortlisted is a massive pat on the back and a huge incentive for us to keep on doing what we’re doing.

“G Purchase and Andrew Bowden have given us glowing testimonials which have helped us with other contracts.

“Normally, all the waste goes straight into a skip which is parked outside on the street in these communities. They’re not pretty and they don’t create a good picture.

“Our guys from Crest strip out the waste carefully, we don’t rip it out which would make a lot of the materials unsalvageable.

“Whatever is salvageable, we will re-use through our community store – everything is reprocessed and recycled including the worktops, the carcasses, the tiles and the baths.”