About GREAN
Structure and Workforce Recyclates Achievements History
Structure and Workforce
GREAN is a community enterprise. Its membership elects six unpaid directors who line manage the Project Manager, Fergus Morrison.
GREAN currently (Spring 2008) employs 15 staff full time and one part time; of these employees, 14 have been recruited either through training placements or from unemployment. Seasonal employment coincides with students summer and winter vacations. A small group of volunteers run the Community Garden Scheme.
Our workforce varies in age from 15 to 63 and includes several staff who have experienced barriers to employment. Only one person was in employment before starting with GREAN.
GREAN runs a training programme, see Training Project page.
GREAN household kerbside collection service is the most comprehensive in the Highlands. We collect the following:
- Newspapers and magazines
- Office paper
- Cardboard and 'grey' card
- Glass bottles and jars (except pyrex type)
- Metal drinks cans
- Metal food tins
- Plastic drinks bottles (PET 1)
- Plastic milk bottles (HDPE 2)
- Woven polypropylene bags (including tote bags)
- Textiles
- Shoes
- Electric cable
- Bicycles
- Lawnmowers
- Other materials by arrangement
In addition, the same materials can be collected from businesses by arrangement.
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- has met its targets for tonnage diverted from landfill every year since 2003
- offers kerbside recycling to 75% of households in East and Central Sutherland
- has achieved an average 82% participation at the kerbside
- recycles 0.02% of all plastic recycled in the UK
- provides 16 jobs
- provides up to 10 trainee placements per year
- brings in £0.5 million pounds to the local economy per year
- provides the most comprehensive kerbside collection north of Perth
- enjoys tremendous support from the local community
- provides employment opportunities for students home on vacation
History
Golspie Recycling and Environmental Action Network (GREAN) formed as a result of a public meeting in December 2000. This followed several months during which a working group had met on several occasions to look at the feasibility of developing locally based recycling solutions in line with Highland, Scottish, UK and EU Directives on Waste diversion from landfill. The working group consisted of local Highland Council members and various Council departments, CASE, enviromental bodies such as WHAM, SNH and SEPA, and local members of the public.
GREAN was formally establised as a registered charity (number SC0131539) in 2001 and is also regsitered as an environmental body with ENTRUST (number 160195). GREAN bacame a Company Limited by Guarantee on the 21st January 2004, (Company Number 262247).
GREAN's objectives are:
- To recycle locally produced waste
- To reduce landfill
- To reduce waste disposal costs incurred by local businesses
- To promote a green identity and establish green redentials for the Golspie area, attracting capital and revenue support
- To promote a positive community awareness on waste minimisation
- To provide and support educational initiatives on waste minimisation
- To assist agriculture locally
- To attract interest, including tourist interest, to community activity in Golspie which will result in revenue to the area
- To establish core enterprises initially and thereafter add on further linked enterprises as and when resources and opportunities become available
- To provide job opportunities with an emphasis on social inclusion
GREAN took as its first priority to raise environmental awareness, to undertake environmental education and to encourage the take up of recycling through kerbside collections within Golspie.
To date GREAN has been directly involved in the kerbside collection and recycling of paper, card, cans, textiles, bicycles and lawnmowers and, uniquely in the Highlands, plastics, in Golspie, Dornoch, Helmsdale, Brora, Lairg and Bonar Bridge; waste awareness and education; a community composting and garden scheme within Golspie; and the provision of New Deal and other training placements.