Re:Form

About

Summary Re:Form gives redundant corporate workwear new life, transforming the lives of unemployed local people. Re:Form’s manual process outperform mechanical processes which struggle with mixed, soiled composite material. This groundbreaking initiative has created a viable, holistic, corporate social responsibility scheme and a marketplace for workwear. Re:Form’s inspirational back-to-work training programme ensures thousands of items are collected, cleaned, sorted, debranded and returned to market. Reusable new goods are assessed, repackaged and sold. The remainder are sterilized and remanufactured into several different product lines. Reuse & Remanufacture has replaced energy recovery which over-delivers a replicable social value embodied reuse solution. Project Status A conversation during Rushlight 2015 instigated a trial to review all Veolia PPE and corporate workwear designated for disposal from an integrated waste site over 4 months. Over 97% of a broad range of mixed, dirty and damaged kit weighing 0.7t was successfully processed, confirming viability.  Corporate partner commitment to a regional pilot leveraged Local Enterprise Partnership funding to implement a dedicated facility and employ a project manager to initiate the training programme supported by local Jobcentres.  Over 5 tonnes has been processed in the pilot year with sale of goods helping to fund additional paid roles to develop and administrate products and sales. Project viability using workwear from a mixed industrial activity business partner has given confidence that a wide range of attire is suitable for this style of processing as we expand into other industry types.  An exclusive arrangement with our waste partner will manage expansion through controlled volumes, with national rollout to all their UK sites and interested clients underway. A dedicated location is being sought to process 50-100tpa with the current Scrapstore integrated unit replicable across our network and bespoke client site facilities under review. We’re ready to grow!  Description Corporate workwear incorporates an extraordinarily broad range of clothing, equipment comprised of composite mixtures of materials, in various states of cleanliness and disrepair. Secure debranding happens onsite in Cambridgeshire for added brand protection that previously only secure destruction through incineration provided. Despite the fact that mechanical solutions require significant pre-sort only a small proportion of workwear can be recycled. Segregation, laundering and haulage costs are untenable for most organisations to undertake inhouse. Even unused workwear usually ends up shredded for low grade applications,  Veolia’s commitment as a waste operator to find sustainable end-of-life solutions for tens of tonnes of equipment issued to 14,000+ staff; means Veolia is used to thinking in large volumes and applying mechanized solutions at industry scale. Reuseful UK is a charity who look at things and people individually and creatively. The unique partnership between these initially disparate approaches has overcome many challenges to create a bespoke, scalable CSR solution with social benefits to match the positive environmental impact – using old workwear to help retrain unemployed people for work has its own poetic as well as economic circularity.  A manual solution is the only way each item can be assessed and treated at its optimum place in the waste hierarchy. Reuse for its original purpose becomes possible through bespoke debranding and quality checking. Remanufacturing is facilitated through laundering and creative process. Redistribution and sale is enabled using Scrapstores extensive experience with business surplus.  In practice, a physical workshop is required to sort, log and process incoming items. A bank of washing machines, driers, tables, cutting and sewing equipment enables people to launder, securely debrand, package and label for reuse, deconstruct for remanufacture and create new things. Regular guaranteed volumes of similar items from a single industry type has justified investing time and effort to create patterns and markets often resulting in remanufactured products that integrate resources from another industry entirely, eg packaging from LUSH. The waste professionalism embedded in both organisations ensures safe and compliant practice is consistently followed. The workforce includes skilled motivated volunteers working with trainees referred by the local Jobcentre supported by a small paid team of project manager, Production supervisor, administrators and finance support. The team is led by Reuseful UK CEO Nikki DiGiovanni. Whilst the partnership is with CCORRN the local scrapstore the benefits reaches across the network of scrapstores E.g. clothing no longer waste industry compliant is perfect for painting & decorating. Hard hats and hi-viz are popular with member organisations for dressing up and training scenarios. Oddments and fabric scraps are added to the craft supplies. The Re:Form internet platform can also be used for other items to secure the future of the Scrapstores network through increased sales.  Within Veolia, the collaboration required to support effective collation of items across disparate sites has fostered new working relationships. Discussions with operatives about what their old kit is made into offers a real personalized example of the corporate vision for innovation and environmentally enhanced solutions for our own and others waste. Innovative Aspect The key innovation is the disruptive thinking, approaching a diverse waste stream in a completely different way, combined with behaviour change at individual and organizational level.  End-of-life workwear is transformed from a disposal problem for one organisation, to a resource; enabling people to find the confidence and skills needed for personal development and to gain employment. The diversity of practical and creative skills required ensures challenges, attainment and impact potential within a welcoming environment that fosters development at an individual’s pace under the stewardship of competent inspirational staff. When trainees move on to paid employment elsewhere they take with them the waste to resource knowledge and skills gained and are able to apply them in the new workplace.  This new business model has enabled Reuseful UK’s Cambridgeshire facility to operate on a commercial scale due to the guaranteed supply and associated income, vital in the constant quest for funding and security. Within Veolia, the economics are valued as CSR investment with carbon pricing and value added services to their own clients who may otherwise not have considered the option of workwear and PPE debranding and reuse and remanufacture. previously. Veolia purchases products to proudly use as corporate gifts, and donates fundraising revenue back to Reuseful UK.  It’s a triumph of charity/corporate partnership working with back-t- basics, slow-tech, people-centric practical application of standard equipment and creative processes, on a sound business foundation with realistic funding and growth expectations overlaid with genuine commitment and mutual respect from both organisations. Benefits The first year saw over 5 tonnes of uniform leapfrogging up the waste hierarchy from disposal to reuse (some via upcycling). It started with textiles and has extended to specialist PPE (e.g. hard hats & safety boots), redundant promotional items (e.g. dated event giveaways) even out of date first aid kit components (for use in training scenarios). Branded items & protective equipment that is no longer fit for its original purpose has been prevented from re-entering the market place inappropriately without it having to be 'securely destroyed'.  Diverting this amount of textile and plastic from disposal has also displaced equivalent new materials and products entering the market place. As the majority of material used is plastic and inorganic fibres, the carbon savings from using the materials again, displacing new and delaying disposal are at least double those embodied in the original manufacture of the raw material (conservatively estimated at 3 tonnes per tonne, excluding manufacture, transport and packaging of finished goods). Domestic processing and resale contains the associated haulage emissions. The disruptive thinking has increased Veolia's awareness of the potential for reuse of items way beyond its clothing remit - a recent manufacturing client visit to review their workwear recycling potential has resulted in a much broader diversion of surplus components to the local Scrapstore, that would previously have been recycled at best. The coming year will see the scheme grow to handling 10-50 tonnes of corporate workwear nationally from Veolia, its partners & clients. The initiative has every opportunity to further expand and replicate, within the Scrapstores network in partnership with Veolia and beyond. Discussions will commence with Veolia’s workwear providers to explore options to make debranding less destructive, along with manufacturing improvements to make things last longer or easier to deconstruct for more effective fibre reclamation. An environmental consultant is interested in facilitating progression to more extensive circular economy solutions via the Ellen McArthur CE100 platform. A 2012 study suggested over 40 million garments weighing close to 16,000 tonnes enter the UK market every year. This excludes specialist equipment and footwear eligible for this programme. The potential benefits of this scheme and any similar activities that it inspires are significant. Looking to the social value benefits, over 250 people seeking employment have been involved with the project since it started, helping to sort, upcycle and resell the donated items. Since inception in 2016 over 100 people have gained employment and 150 are job ready having gained new work skills.