By Daniel Stephenson
January 31 2020, 10.05
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Taking wood waste off the streets of south west London is the core mission for social enterprise InUse-ReUse.
Founder Dennis Boateng believes in the importance of taking scrap wood from markets and businesses and putting it to use as recycled goods.
They recently partnered with Veolia, through Lambeth’s Recycling Fund for Communities scheme, to work on a project that takes discarded wood pallets collected from Brixton market and transforms them into bespoke benches and tables for Slade Gardens in Stockwell.
Pushing wood waste up the recycling hierarchy has been a challenge for councils for some time.
With the governments drive to increase recycling, we saw an increase in landfill taxes from April 1st 2019, and this will rise further in April 2020.
More than 5 million tonnes of wood waste is produced in the UK and year on year this number continues to increase, yet only half of this waste is recycled.
InUse-ReUse aim to support increased recycling by either channelling wood waste to be processed at a recycling plant or by converting these raw materials into furniture.
This model enables them to offer a cheaper, more eco-friendly alternative to traditional waste collection services.
The InUse-ReUse workshop is situated in ‘The Remakery’ (a not-for-profit maker-space), which is located on the border of Brixton and Camberwell.
Dennis spoke to the South West Londoner about his work.
You can find InUse-ReUse and all their products at their website: www.inuse-reuse.co.uk
