We are delighted to announce two environmental achievements.

• Our solar installation was connected at the beginning of December 2011 and is fully operational! We’re one of the largest community solar projects in the country and thrilled to be contributing to renewable energy production. 
• We were awarded  “Environmental Charity of the Year 2011″ by the Gloucestershire Assembly at their Gloscars event in November 2011. The award recognises the GRC as being “Best at reducing climate change”.

The world’s resources are in decline as our consumption, in all areas of our lives, escalates.  Disregard for the value of what we have has been encouraged to stimulate the consumer hiding inside most of us.    Young people are a significant market for manufacturers of toys and the electronics industry.  All to perpetuate a cycle of acquiring more to maintain a sense of wellbeing.   

The GRC and the 100 plus other Scrapstores and Resource Centres operating throughout the UK have a common aspiration.  We are all keen to buck this trend seeking instead to stimulate the imagination, encourage invention and resourcefulness, especially in young people. Working out how to build or design the game, the toy, the installation or artwork is where the pleasure and the learning takes place and Scrapstores with their extraordinary range of amazing materials can ignite this process.  

Our Scrapstore service represents a remarkably simple but effective and proactive way to engage people in re-using.  The benefits are significant ……

• We diverted over 74 tonnes of business waste from landfill in 2010/2011 and passed these materials on to be usefully re-used.
• Re-use is a practical way to divert waste from landfill and involves no costly processes.
• Re-using materials from the Scrapstore means groups are not adding newly manufactured materials to the waste stream.
• Anyone re-using Scrapstore materials in their creative activities is learning to appreciate the scale of the waste problem we face and the impact they can make by using the GRC.
• 1,230 groups benefiting 239,836 individuals used the GRC’s Scrapstore service in 2010/2011, that’s a lot of creativity and re-use in Gloucestershire!
• With over 100 independent centres like ours in the country – you can do the maths!