Ressourcerie Namuroise, a cooperative collecting, recycling and reusing waste
Collect, refurbish, resell - you don't get much more circular than that...
The Ressourcerie Namuroise in Belgium is a cooperative society created in April 2007 by several associations in the waste management sector. They wanted to provide collection and processing services for bulky household waste, while also helping people with scant marketable skills to break into the labour market. In 2017, the cooperative established a partnership with BEP Environnement, Namur's waste management authority, which enabled municipalities to outsource the collection of bulky items with a view to their reuse.
Individuals can contact the Ressourcerie to arrange for items to be collected free of charge. In its workshop, the Ressourcerie’s Fabrik team creates and produces made-to-measure furniture using wood from end-of life furniture collected by the Ressourcerie. The team makes tables, chests of drawers, chairs and other small items by gluing strips of wood together. The result is genuinely striking, as well as sustainable and circular. These, along with various vintage and second-hand items collected, are sold at their Boutiks located at five sites across the province of Namur.
Other types of waste, such as electric and electronic waste, books and DVDs, are dispatched to the appropriate organisation which repairs what can be repaired and sells the items.
- The Ressourcerie Namuroise has collected 4080 tons of bulky items from over 19 000 households.
- 20% of this was first broken down to separate out any parts which could be recycled and the rest subsequently incinerated to produce energy, 69% was recycled and 11% was resold or reused.