A central tenet of the new approach to waste is to think of unwanted or left-over material not as rubbish but as a resource. The old adage, ‘Where there's muck, there's brass' is as true now as it was in the Victorian age, when poverty drove people to recover and reuse anything of any value.

One Bristol company, Chemical Recovery, has been in business since 1963 and today sells £1.5 million of recovered oils, solvents and fuels annually. Specialising in the recycling of contaminated industrial solvents, oils and water, the company provides a complete recycling service to over a thousand customers who have solvents or oils recovered for their re-use. A further thousand businesses use the facilities to dispose of waste.

Selected solvents are recovered then re-blended and re-formulated - they are then ready for new users as industrial cleaning fluids or paint thinners. Oils are recovered, then blended for use as an alternative fuel.

Another venture with connections to industry is the Children's Scrapstore, a membership-based non-profit that offers (in return for a donation) all manner of offcuts and leftovers for creative play: paper and card, foam, plastic pots, tubes and tubs, netting, fabric, books, CDs and any other safe waste that comes its way.
Part of a national network, the Scrapstore started out as a Friends of the Earth project in 1982. Membership is open to groups working in creative play, care, educational and therapeutic settings, but anyone can shop at Artrageous, the art and crafts store next door to the charity's scrap warehouse in St Werburghs.

Another longstanding and valuable institution is the Bristol Wood Recycling Project, which saves timber from going to landfill and sells it at affordable prices to the local community. A self-funded non-profit social enterprise, BWRP creates training, volunteer and employment opportunities as part of the city's growing green economy.

So too does the SOFA Project, another success story of the early 1980s. What started as one man and a van is now a large shop supported by eight lorries and vans, a workshop, two warehouses and twenty staff capable of collecting and delivering all over the Bristol and Avon area. The shop sells affordable new, nearly new and second hand furniture and household items to everyone, with further discounts available to those on low income and benefits.

More recently the successful non-profit has expanded into the electrical goods market. Taking advantage of increasingly tough regulations for the disposal of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and the resultant funding and sponsorship opportunities, SOFA Project subsidiary REVAMP collects fridges, freezers, washing machines and cookers. Suitable appliances are refurbished for resale by the SOFA Project, and those that can't be reused are sorted at REVAMP's St Philips depot and deposited in containers for removal by recycling company partners such as SIMS in Newport, South Wales.

Waste textiles are put to creative use by Bristol Recycled Bags, a social enterprise that grew out of the popular Gloucester Road Alternative Bags Campaign. Combining the twin aims of recycling unwanted cotton, hessian and other materials and of providing employment and training for women in Easton, this non-profit makes shopping bags in a range of distinctive designs created by local artists.