Surplus NHS supplies find new life helping those in need

Warp It’s vision since day one has always been to normalise the reuse of surplus assets across organisational estates, such as universities, councils and hospitals.

Despite the proven benefits of a reuse system in these organisations, we still see many opting to throw their surplus assets in skips and dumpsters on a daily basis.

Eventually this will stop. 

Scotland is leading the way on implementing the Circular Economy.

It may sound cliched but it’s true – it’s not what you know, but whom you know.

So you’re ready to launch your reuse program or sign up to Warp It? Here’s what you need to know before you get started!

Our aim is to make reuse mainstream in organisations. 

We regularly talk to many people who are implementing a reuse system in their organisation and found that many are struggling with a whole host of issues. This ranges from securing buy-in and getting people on board with the project to communicating simple successes and achievements.

In this report we will address a variety of topics relating to the difficulties that can arise when trying to set up or grow a reuse project in any type of organisation. We will draw from a survey that we conducted of our customers and our bank of case studies.

This report will be of use to anyone looking to set up or improve a furniture reuse program or system, in particular:

• Surplus managers
• Procurement managers
• Sustainability managers
• Waste managers
• Service design managers
• Finance Directors
• Estates and Facilities Directors

Horsham District Council’s Commissioning and Performance and Sustainability teams won the Sustainability/Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative of the Year Award at the National Government Opportunities (GO) Excellence in Public Procurement Awards 2016/17. 

The team won for their innovative commissioning approach to the sustainable disposal of surplus office equipment when the council moved from its old premises to a new shared office space with West Sussex County Council in 2015.

Using Warp It, the commissioning project succeeded in disposing of a large amount of unwanted office contents without it having to go to landfill, greatly minimising the cost of disposal of the items.

Warp It opens the floor for Helen Peacock from Horsham District Council, who has been generous with her time in giving us some fantastic and in-depth answers to our questions. In this article you can expect to find important advice for:

Warp It’s founder Daniel O’Connor is here to talk from personal experience, through interesting anecdotes, about how you can provide sensible logic to your boss or director to get them interested in reuse. Daniel has recruited most of the UK’s universities, councils and regional NHS facilities onto our furniture reuse software, so you can trust that he has a lot of experience working with senior management and decision makers.