THE COMMUNITY RECYCLING CENTRE
DID YOU KNOW:
It takes 70% less energy to recycle paper than it does to make it new from raw materials.
Recycling a single aluminium can will save enough energy to power a TV for up to three hours or an iPod for up to twenty hours.
Our idea is a sustainable, community recycling centre and shop. We want to engage and encourage the community by providing an easy and interactive way to recycle, bringing all ages together in one place.
We took inspiration from ‘the winter garden’ and existing sustainable shops; where you can take your empty containers and refill – using local farming – to create less waste.
We want to bring the primary schools and children in by having fun and exciting workshops where they can create murals that support the environment and spread ideas about how saving it can be fun and helpful.
Location
The location we have identified as an ideal prototype for this new typology of building is the derelict Old Roan pub on Copy Pane/Ormskirk Road in Aintree
We undertook a site analysis to identify what about this site made it a good choice, which can be seen below. We wanted to use an existing building because of the environmental benefits involved in not having to do new construction.
Our Plan
Here is our idea for how the floor plan of our new building would work:
Along with some visualisations of how we imagine the inside to look:
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Further Viewing
Here is a video for further viewing on recycling in the UK to help understand the inspirations and motivation behind our project:
What do you think of our idea? We’d love to know!
Great idea, to combine recycling with re-use/refill. You could even have a cafe serving produce made in an allotment, thinking about ways to make this a self funding proposal. This could really take off, especially combining it with community education and events. Re-use of an existing building of course, always good news – and you could educate the community in these aspects too, as we focus on upgrading and retaining our homes. Lovely hand drawn images too. Super work!
It’s brilliant to see how you have developed your idea since I met you back in July! The site you’ve chosen looks ideal, with close proximity to a variety of transport options, and on a prominent corner site that will be easy to see from the road. Have you considered how you might alter the exterior of the building, to attract people in? I really like the visualisations of the interior, perhaps if you created more of these overlaid on streetview images to illustrate this?
Also, I love the “call to action” leaflet you created – could you add some visual prompts to this too?
Excellent work, well done everyone!
A wonderful idea. Education around what can and can’t be recycled and how to ensure that rubbish is ‘recycle ready’ would benefit many. There’s always a ? about what actually ends up being recycled from our blue bins, so that reassurance that the waste is being properly disposed of in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way, gives all the more reason to separate waste and dispose of it correctly. Not sure if this is the plan, but it would be incredible for the public to see the recycling in action, even via a live feed into the shop or the communal space!
I love the idea and the potential that this new typology of building has to offer. If you were to extend yourselves, it would be great to consider further how it would work in practice. The site you’ve chosen is great, could you consider a day in the life of someone who works there? What tasks would they be required to do – how could you put yourselves in their shoes and think about how that would affect your design?
Or maybe in the shoes of someone who has something they want to recycle but that the council won’t pick up – what do they do when they get there? How do they get there? Do they get extra time on the games for cycling instead of driving, for example? As far as I’m aware, I’ve never seen a building like this that would combine these uses, so the decision making really is all up to you! A really exciting concept.
Such wonderful ideas and a brilliant project! The location you have chosen along with the site analysis is great and offers brilliant access via sustainable modes, have you considered if people might cycle to the recycling centre?
It would be really interesting to see your ideas for the external spaces, maybe with places to sit and spaces to grow- perhaps opportunities for rainwater harvesting!
I wish we had somewhere as wonderful as this in our community!
This is a great project and I really liked the visualisations! I’m curious about how you decided on the floor plan? Why is the recycling centre L-shaped?
This is such an important topic and I really like your idea. It’s nice to think of alternatives to at home recycling. I think you’ve done some really good thinking about location and plans for the building itself. You’ve also thought about connecting recycling products and packaging with recycling of buildings and the embodied energy in existing buildings. Really nice to see these connections.
I think this idea is great and I am really interested in it! Especially as it addresses a really big problem – plastic waste and the necessity to reduce this and recycle more!
Looking at your floor plan and visualisations of the space, I like how you have two entrances and I like that you have a bag for used bags. I like your plan to stock local produce as this would reduce air miles / carbon footprint and encourage people to eat more seasonal foods as well as investing money back into the local economy.
The video you’ve included here is really informative, I will be visiting the recyclenow website and the points about “if in doubt, leave it out” and rinsing out containers before recycling are really important messages to get across. Have you considered including information like this at your centre? Or letting people know the journey of what happens to their bottle when they recycle it for example?
I think this is a great idea! A one stop shop for recycling and sustainability. It’s sociable, fun and interactive and a good meeting point and informative!
Would you have a limit of the size of items you would have people bring in for recycling? Will the staff sort the recycling out at the front desk or do the public do it themselves?
Is there a café here too? That might be good if you are planning to hold workshops there so people have access to refreshments and can spend extended periods of time here, if you are wanting to encourage people to hang around and talk / learn off each other? I guess it depends on whether this is your intend use of the space. Or if not a whole café, perhaps a coffee truck? For the parents while kids are doing workshops?
I really love your idea and looking forward to going there!
Really like the way the concept has been presented from the ‘did you know’ facts, to the proposed location of the community recycling facility (great for footfall), the layout of the facilitry & finally the publicity flier.
I really love your design concept! I think every community should have one! There are so many positives to say about this idea. You’ve considered inclusivity, creating a space that encourages a sense of community by bringing together lots of different people and catering for different needs. It is an informative and communal space, raising awareness about an important issue with educational workshops, information boards, even the materials used in the construction of your interior / exterior spaces are demonstrating and promoting reuse and recycling. I love how much thought has gone into the indoor and outdoor use of the space with detailed consideration of the floorplan and sketches to illustrate your vision. There are elements of fun and creativity, with the idea for murals and in doing this you are not only bringing people together to get creative but creating a sense of shared ownership and legacy to the space, making it a place where people feel they have contributed and made their own too. The refill shop has a clear use for local people; you’ve considered affordability pricing your produce lower than buying new and also stocking local produce – responding to people’s needs and encouraging them to spend their money on local business, helping others in the community and creating a sustainable local economy.
I also really like how you have carefully considered and outlined a potential venue and location for your design concept. You can see by your site analysis that this is well located with close transport links – the train, bus stops, roads and your intention to re-purpose an existing building reduces your environmental impact and makes the most of a building already known by local people which would help cultivate that sense of place and community further. I think it is great that your design is multi-purpose and multi-functional, going by your visuals I can imagine it would be an attractive, safe, useful, positive space for the community as well as kickstarting an initiative that tackles a key environmental issue and encourages a lifestyle shift to something more sustainable and better for our planet!
I had no idea that recycling a single aluminium can will save enough energy to power a TV for up to three hours or an iPod for up to twenty hours! The video you have included here is also really informative and clear and touches on some important / worrying facts e.g. the impact of tonnes of UK plastic waste being dumped in Malaysia. It is somewhat positive to hear that 70% of our packaging waste was recycled or recovered in 2017, however I would agree that labelling is still not that clear and many people won’t be aware of ‘downcycling’. I also didn’t know about the recyclenow website which I am going to check out. What kind of workshops would you run in your community centre? Could they cover some of these topics? Perhaps a combination to include some hands-on reuse/repurposing building activities too? I was also thinking it would be fun to ‘credit’ local people for their contribution e.g. the refill containers and front desk are made by donated / recycled materials, could they have a small tag saying “I was donated by Name” as a fun way to further endorse that sense of community and shared ownership of the space?
Great work, well done!!
I love your ideas. And as someone who’s involved in the Granby Winter Garden and, partly, learned to drink beer in the Old Roan when it was still a pub I can visualise your locations too. The Old Roan looks very sad these days but has good potential passing trade, being down the steps from a railway station, across the road from good local shops and close to a giant Asda – and with its own car park. So well done all of you. Looking forward to it opening!
A really interesting idea.
The posters make the benefits orf recycling really easy to understand and I feel I’ve learn something useful just by looking at them.
I really liked the way that the site had beeen analysed showing its proximity to public transport for example.
The Plan is also really clear and the drawings help to get a good feel of what it would be like.
Wow amazing work.
My only comment is to make sure it is accessible for all. Whether you can access via car, train, walking, bus etc.
Well done
Really interesting facts about the benefits of recycling, and I love that you’ve chosen to recycle a building too! Really like the top too drawings, I feel they could work as adverts to tell people about what you do and why.
It looks like the Old Roan has lots of space out the front of the building too. What do you think could happen there, and how will you let people know that this building has changed its use?
Do you think that a business would take over this building, or do you think the community could have a say in it?