Renew Hub, Manchester: turning discarded items into value through repair and upcycling

The Renew Hub demonstrates how waste management can evolve towards a circular model while delivering tangible benefits to the local community. By extending the lifespan of products, the initiative helps reduce waste, create local jobs, and generate meaningful social value. It also demonstrates how large-scale reuse solutions can support more sustainable practices and improve resource efficiency.

The production of consumer goods requires significant amounts of raw materials and energy, generating substantial greenhouse gas emissions throughout global supply chains. Extending product lifespans through repair and reuse is an effective way to reduce emissions associated with manufacturing, transportation, and waste disposal.

In Greater Manchester, many reusable items were previously disposed of at household waste recycling centres, resulting in avoidable environmental impacts. The Renew Hub was developed to recover and give these items a second life instead of sending them for disposal or recycling.

Containers installed at recycling centres allow residents to donate furniture, electronics, toys, bicycles and other household goods. These items are then transported to the Renew Hub in Trafford Park, where they are inspected, cleaned, repaired or upcycled before being resold in Renew shops or through online platforms.

By extending product lifespans and encouraging reuse, the project helps reduce waste generation and avoid emissions associated with the production of new goods. Since its launch, more than 557,000 items, representing around 3,000 tonnes of materials, have been reused instead of discarded.

The project illustrates how reuse infrastructure can support climate mitigation efforts by reducing resource consumption and promoting circular economy practices.

Waste generation places increasing pressure on natural resources, while waste treatment itself also has environmental impacts. Before the Renew Hub was established, a significant proportion of reusable items collected at Greater Manchester’s household waste recycling centres were not recovered. The Renew Hub was developed to address this challenge through a large-scale facility dedicated to the reuse, repair, and upcycling of collected items.

Covering more than 5,000 m², the Renew Hub is the largest reuse facility in the UK. The facility receives reusable items collected from 20 Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) operated by SUEZ, serving more than one million households across Greater Manchester. These centres act as collection points, where reusable items are identified before being transported to the Renew Hub for repair, refurbishment and resale.

Dedicated workshops restore furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles and other everyday items, extending their service life before they are sold through Renew stores and online platforms. This approach diverts thousands of tonnes of materials from disposal, reducing the demand for virgin raw materials and limiting waste generation.

By extending product lifespans and keeping materials in circulation for longer, the Renew Hub supports the development of the circular economy at regional scale and demonstrates the potential of large-scale reuse solutions.

Beyond environmental challenges, many urban areas also face significant social issues, particularly in terms of access to employment and the rising cost of living.

Reuse initiatives can help address these challenges by providing affordable products to local communities, supporting skills development and training programs, and creating local employment opportunities.

The Renew Hub contributes to the local economy through employment and training opportunities linked to repair, refurbishment and upcycling activities. Since its launch, the initiative has created around 20 green jobs and supports additional training and volunteering programs in partnership with charities, social enterprises and community organisations. These partnerships help develop green skills and support social inclusion.

Refurbished items are sold at affordable prices through Renew shops, improving access to household goods while generating funding for local initiatives. To date, more than £2 million has been raised for community projects across Greater Manchester. As part of this initiative, SUEZ reinvests revenues locally, including an annual donation of £100,000 to the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity to support homelessness initiatives, as well as £200,000 per year allocated to the Renew Community Fund, which supports local community projects promoting repair, reuse, recycling and waste prevention. Since 2021, over 100 community groups have received funding through the Renew Community Fund.