A fast-growing recycling business has continued its national expansion, opening two new sites in as many months.
Recycling Lives opened two facilities in July and August, one in Durham in the North East and one in Falkirk in Scotland, bringing its total number of sites to 11 nationally.
The recycling and waste management business has invested more than half a million pounds developing both sites, saving two jobs and creating five new ones in Durham and creating nine new jobs in Falkirk. It plans to create a further four jobs at each site.
Both will also offer training and work experience to marginalised individuals, as part of Recycling Lives’ social programmes creating training and employment opportunities for ex-offenders and the long-term unemployed.
The sites will process End-of-Life Vehicles (ELVs) before they are transported to Recycling Lives’ industry-leading 15-acre Recycling Park, in Lancashire, to be recycled for metals and plastics to be exported to global markets.
Senior Operations Manager Anthony Sharkey said: “Opening two sites in two months is a huge achievement that demonstrates just how quickly Recycling Lives is growing.
“Not only do these sites represent a committed investment in our business and the site’s local economies, they’ll also contribute to creating social impact for communities by supporting and sustaining our charitable programmes to create real social value.”
Recycling Lives is unique in using its commercial operations to directly support and sustain a number of charitable programmes, rehabilitating ex-offenders, supporting the homeless, and tackling food poverty.
Its HMP Academies are rehabilitating offenders in prisons across the country; its residential charity is supporting homeless men back into independent living in Lancashire; and its Food Redistribution Centre is diverting surplus food from supermarkets to charities and community groups across Lancashire and Cumbria.
These programmes create social value for society through savings to society from reducing reoffending, reducing welfare dependency and supporting small charities, totalling £9.3m social value in the last two years.
Recycling Lives has grown rapidly in recent years, opening five new sites and reporting a 47% sales increase in sales in 2016/17 alone. Earlier this year it won its third Queen’s Award, its first for International Trade, for its work exporting recycled metals and plastics internationally.
