National recycling and waste management social enterprise, Recycling Lives, has created up to £5.2 million in ‘social value’ through leading offender rehabilitation work and other initiatives, the organisation has said.
The Preston-based company processes and recycles scrap metal, scrap cars, waste and waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) to increase diversion from landfill and produce “high-grade recycled materials” from its fragmentiser.
Recycling Lives managing director Willian Fletcher
This includes working with offenders and vulnerable groups to offer work experience and training.
Recycling Lives said it has reduced re-offending rates, supported homeless men to regain their independence, and delivered meals to community groups, to create a saving to society worth £5.2 million in one year through its operations.
Social value
Recycling Lives has now published its annual social value figures, showing its financial and social impact from 2016/17.
This includes the company’s HMP Academies programme. Of the 37 offenders it supported to move into meaningful work and stable accommodation on release from prison, 36 were rehabilitated and did not reoffend within one year of release.
Recycling Lives Group managing director, William Fletcher, said: “We are proving that social value delivers commercial value, by developing a business model that others want to work with for financial value environmental benefit and social impact. Our approach enables clients to meet their CSR agenda by delivering social value relative their contracts.”
Recycling Lives’ social value figures are calculated using government metrics – including Cabinet Office findings on the cost of reoffending to the public purse and Food Standards Agency figures on the value of a meal – by a Social Return on Investment practitioner.
Operations
The business has operated in the recycling sector for 40 years. It has nine sites nationwide, including in Lancashire, Cumbria, Kent, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and the Midlands. Its main 15-acre Recycling Park in Preston, Lancashire.
Recycling Lives’ HMP Academies programme is operational in nine prisons nationwide, including a women’s prison and Category B, C and D men’s facilities. These Academies allow offenders to undertake work in recycling and fabrication processes, while improving skills and earning qualifications, in order to reduce their risk of reoffending.
The company also operates a Food Redistribution Centre, taking surplus goods from food manufacturers, suppliers and supermarkets and distributing it to charities and community groups working in deprived areas and with disadvantaged groups.
The company also reported tthat has had its biggest year for commercial operations in 2017 with sales growth of 47% to £46 million. The organisation uses its recycling and waste management business to support and sustain its own charity and enterprise.
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
