Recycling group celebrates another busy year
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Wood RecyclAbility held their annual Christmas meal out at Tarves' Aberdeen Arms Hotel.
The group have had another busy year in their workshop near Pitmedden, and the meal was the perfect way to round this off before taking a break over the festive period.
Wood RecyclAbility was set up in 1997 as a small social enterprise to provide practical work experience for people with additional support needs - including autism, Down's Syndrome and acquired brain injury - and has grown from a team of two staff and six trainees in a small croft and out buildings to 10 staff and up to 32 trainees each day in a purpose-built workshop with a yard and five acres of agricultural land.
The trainees work with waste wood, meaning that not only does the organisation provide practical work experience it also helps to reduce the amount of waste produced in the local area.
Traditionally a lot of the workshop's waste wood has come from oil companies in the north-east, although this has not been quite so prevalent in recent years and they have relied increasingly on donations from other businesses.
They collect and process around 1500 tonnes of waste wood every year - suitable wood is graded for reuse or recycling, and is then sold on to local joiners or used in the workshop to make a variety of items including garden furniture and wildlife products like nest boxes which can then be sold to fund the organisation.
Wood which is not suitable is chipped for MDF or chipboard, or the wood chips are used directly for gardens or as an energy source.
Trainees can get involved with all aspects of the business, from the hands on work with power tools to interacting with customers and visitors, and some have gone on to have full employment through their experience at Wood RecyclAbility.
Wood RecylAbility and the Wood Shop - where they sell their products - will reopen on January 6.
