reSource Denbighshire's story
reSource CIC is a not-for-profit community interest company with its premises in the beautiful estate of the Cae Dai Trust, about a mile from Denbigh town centre.
Our aim is to support a local circular economy, where items are used until they complete their life cycle, so that we keep them out of landfill and in use for longer. We also provide confidence building, supported volunteering and employment opportunities for people who may find it difficult to gain employment.
Our offering to the local community is varied. For example, we operate a reUse shop where we collect clean, dry, safe, and non-toxic items from individuals, businesses and trade which are sorted and made available in our reUse store. Local people and organisations are then encouraged to buy them for a small fee.
As well as these items, we also have a number of new craft products to compliment the reusables and to help with creative activities. All new items are selected for their environmental credentials and others to support the development needs of children and young people. They include fabrics, paper, card, cardboard, foam, and haberdashery items for creative activities.
Then there is Reform Plastics, an innovative plastics workshop where we sort household plastics with a focus on difficult to recycle items, such as plant pots and broken plastic sledges. Using processes of shredding and machines, we turn these plastics into other useful items.
What's so great about these workshops is that they provide an opportunity for the local community to not only explore the precious properties of plastics but promote reuse of plastics by learning how our waste can be easily turned into another useful item.
We are also currently planning and developing a reMakery, which will be a dedicated community workshop space for creative workshops that are low cost, accessible to all and will mostly be based around the reuse of items. Our workshops will include upcycling and painting furniture, mosaics, sewing, textiles, and felting.
We work closely in partnership with businesses and trade, to help them improve their eco-credentials while at the same time helping them save on waste costs by collecting their safe, clean, scrap.
Useful learnings from reSource Denbighshire
Firstly, you should reach out to Social Business Wales, which helps people thinking about starting up or operating social enterprises, co-operatives, mutuals and employee-owned businesses. They helped me transform an idea into a reality.
I think it's really important to have the confidence to share your ideas with others, because you need to be able to share information about what you're doing if you're going to get the support you need. Don't be shy about it and certainly don't be afraid of the feedback you might get. Most people will be really supportive of your idea. As my business has grown, I've found this to be vital.
Communicate with community groups – we have a very active Friends of the Earth group in Denbighshire, and they have been particularly helpful to me. Make sure you keep up the networking – it will reap rewards. You'll be surprised who you find it beneficial to link with along the way.
Don't be surprised (like I was) when you find that a lot of people are happy to volunteer! I used to wonder why people were happy to work for nothing, but the truth is, they believe in the cause. When you are confident in your product, you will definitely attract the right sort of people and then it's over to you to harness their energy and enthusiasm by giving them roles where they know they are making a difference.
reSource Denbighshire's metrics
We measure the number of people and the demographics that are involved. We aim to understand progression routes for individuals who join us to understand the changes that our work has made. We measure the amount of waste we repurpose in type and volume and look at the waste streams that we try to find solutions for, and the requests from the community and local businesses in finding these.
