As well as our core operation of providing furniture to people in need, we manage other projects and undertake other partnership work as follows:
FRACAS Project:
FRACAS stands for Furniture Reuse Across Civic Amenity Sites, and is a partnership with the North London Waste Authority and the seven constituent boroughs in this area - Barnet, Camden , Enfield , Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest . The project, which commenced in April 2004, is funded by CRED (Community Recycling & Economic Development) and entails us collecting directly from recycling and reuse centres all across North London. The furniture and electrical items we collect have all been left at these site by members of the public, and by operating such as scheme we can give more choice to people in how they wish to donate to us – either directly by us collecting from their residence, or indirectly via the council site. This is of course particularly useful to people who are unable to be at home during our ordinary collection hours. Such a scheme has numerous benefits to it – people who take their items to the site have the satisfaction of knowing they won't be trashed, our operating expenses are kept down by collecting a lot from just one place, the grant we receive for the work helps maintain our financial position, and our service-users have a much wider choice of furniture for their homes.Haringey Waste SLA:
The Service Level Agreement (SLA) which ReStore operates with the London Borough of Haringey (LBH) Waste Management department is an example of how a local authority working with a community group can bring significant benefits – not just to both parties but to the wider community.All refrigeration which is collected from within the borough – approximately 150 units per week – are brought directly to ReStore. For a small fee per unit, we then assess the condition of these fridges, and while the majority of them are beyond repair, we separate any which are deemed to potentially be reusable. These are then tested, and any fridges which are working properly – or work after a small amount of refurbishment - are cleaned and then put on sale.
ReStore than transports all waste refrigeration in bulk to a reprocessing centre outside the borough, which directly invoices LBH for the cost of disposal.
At every stage of this process the correct paperwork is completed by all sides, to ensure not only that we can fully monitor the scheme, but that we comply with all legislative requirements as stipulated by the Environment Agency.
The benefits to the local authority are that they save costs through not having to transport their refrigeration outside the borough and that they get a significant PR benefit through demonstrating their commitment to reuse. The benefits to ReStore are an additional revenue source from LBH, plus a number of units each week which we can sell in our showroom to raise further funds.
The terms were agreed simply through exchanges of e-mails, and both sides agreed that they did not want to have a formal contract in place. This has had the effect of ensuring that ReStore and LBH carry out their duties thoroughly and professionally in order not to give an incentive for the other side to pull out of the arrangement, and as a result, the SLA has been working very well for more than 18 months.
Haringey Housing Contract
We have a contract with the housing department of our local council for supplying cookers directly to their properties.Corporation of London SLA
We operate a collection service from the Corporations recycling centre on a weekly basis – alternating between collecting all the refrigeration collected within their borough one week, and then collecting furniture brought to the site by residents the next week. Furniture is brought back to our warehouse and sold to our clients, while refrigeration units are processed in the same way that those from Haringey are. A key difference though is that the Corporation of London pays us a higher unit price, and we meet the disposal cost ourselves.Bulky Waste
We are now working with councils to provide a direct collection service for the benefit of their residents. When householders contact their council call centre with a view to disposing of large items of furniture, they are now asked if the items are reusable, and where they are, these calls are filtered into a separate reuse collection service. We provide a dedicated van for these collections. Orders for pick ups – which could be up to 10 jobs per day – are faxed to us the day before collection, and we then collect the items and bring them back to our warehouse. Residents of the below boroughs requiring a collection should contact:
- Haringey Residents Haringey Enterprise 020 8885 7700
- Enfield Residents Enfield Council Call Centre 020 8379 1000
- Camden Residents Camden Council Call Centre 020 7974 6914
In addition we are negotiating similar arrangements with other local authorities.