It was heartening to read the Gazette's article on the furniture recycling charity Waste Not Want Not, which highlighted that by refurbishing unwanted goods, tonnes of waste can be diverted away from our rapidly filling landfill sites.

With a similar end in mind, the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is working with furniture recycling groups across the county to set up a new organisation called Refurbiz that will help hundreds of people throughout Swindon and Wiltshire to furnish their homes with electrical goods at low cost.

Refurbiz will refurbish Wiltshire's waste electrical goods and send them to recycling groups who will distribute them to low income families.

This will ease the pressure on landfill sites, as even items that are beyond repair will be stripped down to reusable components or go to scrap dealers for recycling.

The initiative will keep Wiltshire one step ahead of forthcoming European legislation governing waste electrical and electronic equipment that will make the manufacturers and distributors of electrical goods pay towards their re-use and recycling, and make local authorities responsible for collecting them.

Wiltshire currently throws away the equivalent of 68 double-decker busloads of electrical goods a month 9,600 tonnes a year that goes to waste.

By encouraging householders, retailers and manufacturers of electrical goods to bring in unwanted items we believe that Refurbiz can cut this amount by 30 per cent in two years.

At the same time, Refurbiz will train unemployed people to carry out the repairs, providing them with a qualifications and job opportunities.

Fridges, freezers, cookers, washing machines, anything from heart monitors to fruit machines, can all be given a new lease of life instead of going to the landfill pit.

K Brown

Wiltshire Wildlife Trust

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