About Remade EssexIntroduction
Recyclable Market Development Essex is an ambitious project set up in 2000 to create new markets and secondary uses for recycled materials in Essex.
The project aims are to:
- Help Essex businesses exploit the opportunities arising from the increased re-use of materials
- Encourage capital investment in new reprocessing capacity in Essex
- Develop new added value markets for secondary materials in Essex.
- Help to create jobs by expanding the environmental technologies sector in Essex
- Maximise recycling rates in Essex
Judging Remade's Success
The key environmental challenge facing Essex is to move from a landfill dominant waste management regime towards more intensive recycling.
Remade Essex measures its success by:
- The development of thriving markets in the priority materials for recycling in Essex
- The number of jobs created in the environmental technologies and related sectors
- Achieving a significant reduction in the amount of Essex waste going to landfill
To achieve these goals a variety of techniques being used including:
- Giving business support and monitoring to Essex SMEs
- Establishing trials and pilot projects
- Organising specific workshops for the priority materials
- Running a communications campaign to raise awareness of the need for new markets amongst Essex businesses and residents
Other Objectives
The Remade Essex project has been set up to achieve a closer convergence between national and local waste strategies, sustainable development strategies and local economic development programmes.
The project is promoting the considerable benefits of recycling to businesses while improving the local recycling infrastructure to make it easier to recycle.
By developing a thriving recycling industry in Essex, businesses will be able to dispose of their waste in a sustainable manner and other businesses will have the option of using secondary instead of raw materials. In turn, recycling businesses will benefit from an expanded customer base.
Securing A Sustainable Future
Remade Essex is based on the experiences of the Seattle based Clean Washington Centre in the USA, which was established in 1991 to stimulate markets for recycled materials. As a result the recycling rate in Washington State rose from 5% to 52% during the 1990s and $1.4 billion of capital investment was unlocked. The processing and remanufacturing of recycled materials became a significant economic centre in the economy – one which employed over 18,000 jobs.
The first Remade initiative in the UK was set up in 1998 in Scotland and full-scale programmes are currently being undertaken in Merseyside, London and Kent with other projects being run in the Southwest, Hampshire, Yorkshire, Cornwall and Wales.
Remade Essex is creating a marketplace where businesses can buy and sell recycled material but can only succeed with the help and support of the businesses and consumers who will ultimately benefit from the initiative.
Partnership Approach
Remade Essex is a subsidiary of ExDRA Ltd and operates from Aquila House, Waterloo Lane, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1BD.
The project has the support of all Essex local authorities, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, the Waste Resource Action Programme (WRAP), Government Office of the East, the Environment Agency local Environment Trusts.
The East of England Development Agency gave the project funding from its initial Business Competitiveness fund because of the potential impact that it will have on both Essex’s and the region’s economy. Remade are determined to fulfil that potential in the coming years.
Remade Essex and UK Centre for Economic and Environmental Development (UK CEED) have formed a partnership to deliver the Remade East programme. The programme will be funded by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) until March 2008. Find out more about Remade East by clicking here.
Further Information
For more information on how you can contribute to securing a prosperous, sustainable future for Essex contact:
Neil Thomson
Programme Manager
Email: neil.thomson@remadeessex.org.uk
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