SUEZ recycling and recovery UK driving forwards a circular economy and bringing reuse on an industrial scale to Greater Manchester

The single biggest threat to decarbonisation is consumption. What if as a society we wasted less, reused more, and gave items a second lease of life leading to less manufacturing of new products and a more circular economy? It doesn’t take new technology, but it does take training in green skilled roles and it does require us to think differently as a society about the way we consume things.

That is what SUEZ in partnership with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) are bringing on an industrial scale to Greater Manchester.

(SUEZ recycling and recovery UK operate the waste and resources contracts on behalf of Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), managing 1.1 million tonnes of municipal waste from more than 1 million households across 9 Greater Manchester districts (Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford).)

Repairing and reusing minimises the need to extract raw materials to make new products and makes better use of the existing materials. Increasing repair and reuse of products could add over £54 billion to UK gross value added! (Source: WRAP: WRAP Net Zero Emissions Report)

So what have we done to progress this? There are donation containers on 16 Household Waste Recycling Centres across Greater Manchester for residents to donate pre-loved items. We take those items to a central Hub in Trafford Park which will officially open this year. The Hub has repair pods where we are working with like-minded businesses to repair and upcycle items where needed, before they are then sold in three ‘Renew’ shops, with online sales due to launch soon.

All of the money raised through the shops is donated to good causes with £100,000 for the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Fund every year, and a minimum of £220,000 for the Recycle for Greater Manchester community fund every year, which aims to reduce waste, increase engagement and lead to behavioural change within communities.

There will also be training opportunities, workshops, and educations events held at the Hub to allow us to give people the skills to waste less and reuse more.

Want more info? Follow us @renewgreatermanchester

Suez are kindly supporting our Green Tech Conference 22 and will be participating in our panel focused on Circular Economies. To find out more about the conference please click here.