[UK] Poverty charity is furnished with waste industry award

from The Scotsman

A CITY charity that helps people on low incomes furnish their homes has scooped a top waste industry award.

Edinburgh Furniture Initiative (EFI) provides free furniture, appliances and other household items to people on the poverty line who cannot afford to furnish their homes.

The group won the Best Community Waste Initiative award at the Scottish Waste Industry Awards, for its work at city council recycling centres where re-useable household items are saved from going to landfill.

The project started in March 2005 and has already re-used around 5000 items.

Connie Krauss-Cuthbert, the director of Four Square (Scotland), the social inclusion project behind EFI, said: "This project has far-reaching benefits deep into the local communities.

"As well as the direct benefit to local people in terms of donated goods, this project has also increased the number of quality employment, training and volunteering opportunities available to local people."

She added it had helped to improve the "skills base of all employees working on site".