Eco-Friendly charity saves 300 tons of wood waste from landfill

Community Wood Recycling is a network of independent recycling centres, coordinated by the National Community Wood Recycling Project.  Local award winning charity the Aldingbourne Trust are proud to be part of this network with their Wood@Aldingbourne recycling enterprise.  
 
At the Aldingbourne Country Centre near Chichester, Brian Alden and his team run the Wood Recycling service, where they will collect your waste timber in an environmentally sound way preventing it going to landfill and are cheaper than hiring a skip.
 
Sue Livett, Managing Director at the Aldingbourne Trust said “We have saved over 300 tons of waste timber going into landfill, which is the equivalent to about 34 double decker buses.”
 
The wood that is collected is sorted on site at the Country Centre, and they have a regular donation of scaffold boards from a local scaffolding company, which are perfect for use in the garden. 
 
Shelley Moore from Worthing visited the Country Centre and purchased a selection of the boards an said “We love our scaffold fences as it gives a quirky, recycled edge to our garden; great value for money and we are supporting a charity at the same time – Thankyou”.
 
The Wood team also work with the people we support to create handmade items such as bird houses and other ornamental items.  Any wood that is not suitable for sale is not wasted!  It used to run the biomass boiler at the Country Centre, providing heating across the site. 
 
The Aldingbourne Trust is a charity who takes pride in being sustainable, and holds the environment at its heart.  Their newly opened Quarry Building at the Country Centre has solar panels on the roof to generate electricity onto the local grid, and the building has also been designed to let in natural light in helping to reduce their electricity consumption.
 
The wood shingles that cover the building have a higher insulation value than standard building materials, allowing them to reduce energy consumption by keeping the building cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  Their bio mass boiler also runs from the waste wood that the Wood Recycling team collect.  
 
The decking around the building has been made from recycled tyres, and they have a rainwater harvesting system to provide water to flush the toilets. 
 
The Aldingbourne Trust is a local charity that helps people with learning disabilities and/or autism to have the same opportunities as everyone else to live independent lives.  Visit their website www.aldingbournetrust.org for information on our wood recycling project, venue hire facilities, becoming a corporate volunteer, and more about their award winning charity.