Recycling Scheme Gets Recognition

Environment Minister Sammy Wilson this week paid tribute to a Lisburn recycling project which is helping people on low incomes.

During a visit to the Voluntary Service Lisburn’s (VSL) facilities, the Minister saw at first hand how electrical goods and furniture were being recycled for the benefit of the local community.

Voluntary Service Lisburn was established in 1981 to help meet the needs of the disadvantaged, disabled and elderly in the local community. In addition to its furniture refurbishment and white goods recycling, VSL operates a substantial volunteer system, and carries out environmental and community projects.

Financial backing from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency’s (NIEA) Community Waste Innovation Fund has enabled the project to provide an important service which is recycling goods which would otherwise have gone to landfill and which are sold on to people on low incomes at low costs.

NIEA’s Community Waste Innovation Fund is providing support to VSL until 2009, for its electrical (white) goods recycling project.

VSL Interiors is located in Haslems Lane in the city, just off the main shopping district Bow Street, and is part of the Lisburn Square shopping centre. They collect unwanted domestic white goods such as cookers, washing machines, dryers and small electrical items and repairs and refurbishes them for sale at low cost to those on low incomes.

This project to date has reduced the household appliances going to landfill by 132 tonnes to date, and any that cannot be reused and sold on is recycled in accordance with the latest environmental protection legislation.





Whilst I am impressed with such a service existing and this is a model example of recycle, reduce and reuse. But in the case of appliances, should we be putting old electrical appliances in homes which are less energy efficient than that of new ones.

Related Posts
Keep Recycling!
Alternative Christmas Presents
Green Jobs Boom
Shipping Plastic Bottles to China Produces Less CO2 than Sending Them to UK Landfill
Food Waste Scheme Hailed Success