June 2019

Our work using recycling to rehabilitate offenders has been recognised with a prestigious national award.

Our partnership with Recycling Lives Ltd, Amey and men’s prison HMP Dovegate has been recognised with the Partnership Excellence Award (Public/Private Sector) in the National Recycling Awards 2019 (NRA).

The HMP Dovegate workshop is one of nine we run, employing offenders to undertake recycling or fabrication work and support their rehabilitation.

In 2018, the workshop in the Category C men’s prison, run by Serco, processed 939 tonnes of televisions from household waste recycling centres managed by Amey. It achieved a 99.8% recycle rate for metals, glass, plastics, panels and circuit boards.

This partnership has been developed by Recycling Lives Ltd, our ‘sister’ business, which secured the contract with Amey to support both its recycling targets and our rehabilitation aims.

Tom Carysforth-Nadin, head of operations for Recycling Lives Charity, said: “We’re very proud of this excellent partnership as it allows us to really make a difference so winning this award is the cherry on top of that. Meaningful work is central to improving an offender’s chance of rehabilitation, so we are grateful to Amey and Serco for buying into our model and working with us to make it happen.”

Emily Davies, Head of Social Impact for Amey, said: “I’m delighted that the fantastic work we’ve been delivering with Recycling Lives has been recognised. I’m proud that the work we’ve been involved with is having positive impacts on improving offender’s rehabilitation as well as reducing the amount of household items ending up in landfill sites.”

The win is Recycling Lives Charity’s second NRA, after our Food Redistribution Centre team was named Team of the Year in 2017.