London adopts re-use hubs to tackle waste issues

Five new reuse hubs have been planted across various housing estates in London that will collect, refurbish and redistribute unwanted furniture, as part of a community engagement scheme to tackle the root causes of fly-tipping.


Environmental regeneration charity Groundwork London has partnered with the London Community Resource Network (LCRN) to place the hubs, known as ‘The Loop’, in the aim of equipping local residents with the skills and resources to reduce fly-tipping and improve the local environment by encouraging reuse and recycling.

The Loop hubs are supported through the European Commission’s LIFE+ Programme. This new project will support residents to create community reuse enterprises on their housing estates, transforming redundant spaces in Pembury Estate in Hackney, Grahame Park Estate in Barnet, White City Estate in Hammersmith, Samuel Lewis Trust Estate in Lambeth and at the Andover Estate in Islington.

Each hub has been created via partnerships with various companies including Peabody, Genesis Housing, Southern Housing Group, Bright Sparks and local councils. The hubs will provide free doorstep collection services allowing for donations of wooden furniture.

The five Loops will be complemented by regular community engagement programmes that will offer accredited training, employment and volunteering opportunities as London steps up its behavioural change campaigns to reduce waste and litter around the capital.

Social awareness

Yesterday (10 November), Resource London launched the ‘Just One Thing’ scheme that aims to create a social effort to get Londoners to recycle more. The scheme claimed that if every Londoner recycled one extra plastic bottle a week for a year, enough energy would be saved to power Wembley Stadium for two years.

Recently the streets of Westminster were filled with giant cigarette sculptures, voting ashtrays and music-playing poles as Veolia, and environmental charity Hubbub trialled “some of the most innovative schemes from around the world” to promote waste awareness.  

Oxford Street has also been home to behavioural change innovations after the Chewing Gum Action Group (CGAG) spray-painted brightly-coloured circles to highlight the amount of chewing gum that is dropped.

Matt Mace

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