CIWM Early Careers Ambassador and Principal Advisor at APSE, Bonni Jee, explores how local authorities continued to innovate in all things circular economy throughout 2025.
Most of you reading this probably go to a HWRC (household waste recycling centre) or ‘the tip’ at least once a year, if not more, and almost certainly conscientiously put your items into the right skip for recycling. Increasingly, however, local authorities are now placing reuse at the heart of their HWRC services and extending this approach into the wider community.
While these are challenging times financially for local authorities, and ‘reuse’ may not be a statutory service, reuse hubs are becoming par for the course as part of the local authority offer.
Look at local news, and it seems like almost every week this year, a new reuse shop has opened at a council’s HWRC, from Kent to West Northamptonshire, up to Teesside, to name just a few this year.
It’s a win-win situation, as HWRC skips and bins do not fill up as quickly with perfectly good stuff, reducing disposal costs, and items are resold at affordable prices to help local people with the cost of living and can be donated to those most in need in the community.
In our latest APSE State of the Market Survey, almost 40% of authorities who responded identified circular economy and reuse as a growth area in their service over the next year.
Many will be aware of the pioneering Greater Manchester Renew Hub, celebrating its fourth anniversary this year, which, since it opened, has reused over 400,000 items and raised more than £3 million for the Mayor’s charities in the process. Now, authorities of all shapes and sizes have been following suit.
It was great to visit Lancashire County Council’s EcoTown earlier this year with its innovative interactive walkway, which also included reuse as part of its first-class educational experience to demonstrate the recycling journey and raise awareness of three reuse shops across the county.
Councils’ education teams are well-versed in educating pupils on correct recycling. Now is the time to tell them about reuse and to challenge their parents when they think of chucking items into the skip, and indeed for them to think twice once they are bored with this year’s Christmas present (probably by the time the HWRC opens in the New Year!).
Holistic approaches to the circular economy
It’s not only about HWRC reuse centres, as great as they are. Back in October, I was delighted to be part of the judging panel for our APSE Innovation Awards, where we introduced a Circular Economy category.
We received a high number of applications, the breadth of approaches taken was impressive, and in this era of doom and gloom and tough choices, the effort, innovation and fresh approaches we saw were heartwarming.
The well-deserved winners were Derry City and Strabane Council in Northern Ireland, whose embedding of Circular Economy principles in a massive community event, the city’s annual Halloween festival, was holistic and transferable to many other festivals and scenarios nationwide, demonstrating a real ‘ripple out effect’, which will change mindsets.
Costume swaps and community drop-off points were in place – combatting the previous single-use waste of costumes and decorations – something that can easily be transferred to Christmas!
Social media campaigns also proved a huge success promoting the repair and reuse of costumes, and on the day, recycling champions were on hand at recycling stations to ensure the correct recycling of waste, including food. The council also eschews the use of single-use cups at all its events, providing refill stations and cup deposit return.
Electric reuse dreams – now a reality
Other worthy finalists include North Tyneside Council, which has been leading the way this year in making reuse even easier for residents by offering a free bookable doorstep collection service for small electricals, which will be taken to a community repair hub for PAT-testing, repair and redistribution to the community, saving people from a trip to the HWRC.
Meanwhile, in London, North London Waste Authority have been partnering with ReLondon and the Restart Project to deliver the UK’s first repair voucher scheme, offering residents up to £50 off the cost of repairing their broken electricals.
This ‘nudge’ incentivising repair over buying new has proved a great success with over 2,000 users, demonstrating real behaviour change and fostering a reuse economy in that part of London, which can hopefully be rolled out on a wider basis.
Councils are also able to complement, not compete, with existing well-established charities and networks. In North Kesteven, Lincolnshire, an E-Waste Action Week, including council-supported Repair Cafes, resulted in more donations at local charity shops as part of the wider campaign. It’s not only about what residents can do, but councils’ own corporate resource usage.
It’s also important that in the race to decarbonisation, we don’t forget circular economy principles when it comes to upgrading to more efficient things – from appliances to vehicles.
Lewes District Council upcycled 20 of their existing diesel RCVs into fully electric vehicles by retrofitting them, giving them a new lease of life and not wasting the embodied carbon of the perfectly good truck body, or worse, scrapping them or simply selling them, which would otherwise ‘export’ the emissions to another district! We’ve also seen authorities such as Darlington and Warwick retrofit solar panels to the roof of their RCVs to make them more energy efficient, reducing fuel usage.
While local authorities work hard to deliver the Simpler Recycling and food waste collection requirements in time for next year, the circular economy is here to stay and is increasingly becoming part of the mainstream local authority waste management offer.
Our task ahead is to ensure that the voice of local authorities is represented as part of the ongoing Circular Economy Strategy and Taskforce that is underway.