£9,000 boost for Llandudno recycling company
Businesses and residents across North Wales could soon benefit from improved recycling services as a Llandudno-based organisation has become the first Welsh company to receive a grant from WRAP Cymru
This grants programme gives us the opportunity to offer Wales’ more innovative waste management organisations the chance to kick-start new services and to capture the valuable waste that is being produced by SMEs
Beth Winkley - Programme Manager Wales
£9,000 boost for Llandudno recycling company
Crest Co-operative - a not-for-profit social enterprise which offers recycling services to businesses and residents across North Wales while helping disabled and unemployed people increase their skills and gain employment - has received a grant for £9,300 to buy three new collection vehicles.
Crest offers a range of different recycling services to businesses, including the collection of construction waste timber which it then prepares for re-use and sells from its Community Store in Llandudno Junction, as well as clean business waste which it then sells on for use in children’s arts and crafts activities. The new vans will increase the amount of recycling that Crest can collect from local businesses by 25%.
WRAP Cymru’s grants programme aims to establish a robust and sustainable recycling network for Welsh small and medium sized businesses by providing financial support for organisations which are able to offer specialist recycling services.
As Beth Winkley, programme manager at WRAP Cymru, explains:
"There is currently a severe shortage of recycling infrastructure available to small businesses in Wales - particularly in rural areas or for those which do not produce huge amounts of waste.
"We launched this grants programme in a bid to improve this situation. It has given us the opportunity to offer Wales’ more innovative waste management organisations the chance to kick-start new services and to capture the valuable waste that is being produced by SMEs across Wales before it ends up in landfill."
“This type of grant has never previously been made available in Wales so we are thrilled to have awarded the first one to such an enterprising and worthy company as Crest.”
Sharon Jones, Director of Crest Co-operative, said she was delighted that the company had received the grant.
“Crest Co-operative was first established to help disadvantaged people who had become socially excluded to gain life skills as well as real work experience in a supportive environment. However, we soon saw the potential for the social sector to deliver recycling services and recognised that this was likely to be a growth area as legislation was being introduced to make recycling mandatory for Welsh businesses.
“Our services are already very popular with businesses across north Wales but the additional vehicles will make a real difference to our business as they will allow us to considerably expand our collection services.”
