NatWest Bring it 2020 has provided £50 of match funding
The Glassifieds are giving used glass a new life!
Leeds, England, United Kingdom
Aim
The Glassifieds wants to take the glass from your nightlife and give it a new life!
The Facts.
Now I’m sure you ask yourself on a daily basis, “Why is Glass so amazing?”
Well, I’ll tell you!
- It’s made from all-natural materials.
- It will last forever i.e. never decompose.
- The material is 100% recyclable, an infinite number of times.
- By being virtually inert, it preserves the original taste of the products stored in it without reacting.
- Because of its transparent yet impermeable characteristics, it’s the ideal durable barrier against everything from the weather to bacteria.
Every year in the UK Pubs, bars and restaurants send over 200,000 tonnes of glass to landfill sites, that’s approximately 800 million bottles!
Now, remember that we told you glass never decomposes…
“But what about all the recycling we’re doing?” I hear you say!
Although recycling has made some tremendous advances regarding our impact on the world, it alone cannot fix the problem.
- Not all glass is recyclable, although most are, mainly because of contamination issues.
- The recycling process is lengthy and expensive because of the transportation and sorting steps required. Which is why many city councils choose not to recycle glass.
- Like all processes, recycling takes energy, as does manufacturing products from recycled materials.
- When recycling glass typically only 10% can be added to a production batch, this only impacts furnace energy use by 3% and C02 emissions by 5%.
- There are studies that say recycling gives people the sense that they’re doing all they need to do on behalf of the environment, when in fact recycling alone isn’t enough.
- Consuming fewer items is much more beneficial for the environment than consuming more and recycling what you can.
Time for a rethink!
For as long as I can remember I have been taught to REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE.
Although this generated a positive movement in societies culture and attitude to our consumption, we still seem to be missing an important step… REVIVE!
Not all the glass bottles that go to recycling plants have reached the end of their functional life, so why should we go to the trouble of separating, cleaning, breaking it down and then melting it to form, guess what… another bottle. Especially given the minimal savings above!
By incorporating the REVIVE step we could give the bottle a new life as an entirely different product that could be in someone’s home or place of work for many more years to come.
This is where The Glassifieds comes in…
What do we do?
We have taken it upon ourselves to tackle these shocking facts and statistics on glass use in the UK.
By collecting the used bottles from local Leeds pubs, they are then sorted for their ‘revived’ destiny where they can become a multitude of things; a decorative tabletop when mixed with eco-friendly resin and fixed to a refurbished metal base or reclaimed wooden legs, a charming tealight cover, an offbeat pint or wine glass, maybe even a plant pot, the possibilities are endless.
Not only are we; saving space in landfills, relieving the recycling centre of surplus work and providing unique, guilt-free and affordable products to the public. We also save the business money on disposing of the glass themselves, as this can be a crippling cost for many small organisations.
How did it all begin?
My name is Olivia and I am the founder of The Glassifieds. After training as an engineer, I decided to return to full-time education to complete my degree and find my true calling. I knew I wanted my working career to be spent doing something I could be proud of, something I felt made a difference.
In my final year, I found myself, like most students, a little low on funds. I wanted a creative solution to my predicament because the easy way is just plain boring. Keen on the idea of upcycling projects, I took to Pinterest for inspiration. It was summertime and we’d just had a recent gathering for a BBQ. But what goes hand in hand with a well-hosted barbie? Booze. Seeing the bags of glass bottles ready for the bottle bins, the idea struck!
The next week I cleared out my shed and made it fit to work in, the practical experience was really coming in handy at this point. However, the more I tinkered away with different methods and concepts, the larger the idea became. I started collecting from a few local pubs to broaden my stock and build on my research on how I could make this a substantial business model. It became my dissertation focus and driving force.
I graduated in July 2019 with a 2:1 in Engineering Management and a clear goal. Since then I have been producing products, selling them online and at craft markets. There has been many a cold and frustrating day but every one of them had a lesson.
As cute as my market stall is, I must credit my sisters’ ability to everything look pretty here, it’s never going to make the wave that’s intended. Which is why The Glassifieds has turned its path towards bigger projects that will turn over more stock, meaning we can make a bigger difference with every job.
Which brings us to why you’re sat trawling through my waffle!
What are we raising money for?
For, The Glassifieds to be able to start making these bigger projects, like tables and lighting, we need a proper workshop. The little gnome shed it started in, has done us proud but it’s no Tardis! We plan to build a new workspace, in place of the old, with reclaimed wood from Leeds Wood Recycling, in Hunslet.
The new space would allow us to;
- Increase the number of bottles collected
- Produce physically larger projects, like the tabletops
- Increase the number of products that could be made at one time
- Install separate workstations for safer and more efficient creation i.e. a blasting cabinet for the main part of the glass sanding, a wood workbench fitted with custom clamps, a ‘detailed work’ zone with better lighting and its own dust extractor, as well as a painting and waxing booth to give products a clean dust-free place to dry out.
- Be a suitable place to have meetings with clients on their custom projects. We feel being able to see the materials that will be used really helps us chat with the customer and find out exactly what they want from their purchase.
Our research and quotes have shown we should be able to build and install the workshop for roughly £2500. That's £1500 for materials (timber for building and internal storage solutions, Perspex windows and miscellaneous materials like screws, glue and brackets) and £1000 to install (prep the land space, wire electrics to the building and assemble).
However, we have rounded this cost to £3000 because let’s face it! What projects don’t cost more than expected?
But we are also in dire need of tooling! The other £2000 will be invested in more industrial equipment, better suited to the work.
The tooling we’re in need of;
- Chop Saw (£150 - £250)
- Pillar Drill (£80 - £130)
- Bench Grinder (£20 – £40)
- Undercounter Glass Crusher (£750 to rent per annum)
- Compressor (£100 - £200)
- Portable Dust Extractor (£200 - £300)
- Clamps and Vices (£200)
- A serious restock of drill bits (£300, we use a lot of specialised tooling)
These prices are estimates and we appreciate you can spend much more and much less on each item. We have tried to gauge the cost off equipment that is suitable for our work, not just an ideal wish list.
How you can help!
So, the point of this campaign is to raise some money but to do that we need you to pledge your support!
In return for your generosity, we are offering a range of rewards, proportional to the pledge. Any donation made will take us one step closer to our dream, and we’ll keep you up to date with our progress on what we have ‘paid for’ so far. We value any contribution you can make, having spent a lot of our lives learning that pennies make pounds, we are grateful for whatever we receive.
We are also accepting donations of any tooling you may no longer need, if you have something you wish to pass on please contact one of our social media pages or email: [email protected]
Rewards
You can make pledges through the Rewards section, on the right!
Any pledge of £5 or more will earn you a personal, handwritten thankyou card.
For £10 you will receive a lucky dip glass (33cl to a pint). All glasses are made from upcycled beer or wine bottles ranging in size, colour and style. Below are a few examples.
£15 or more will get you one of our Bottle Fairies. Made from spirit bottles, we have fitted a string of battery-operated fairy lights and coated the labels with clear lacquer. This means the label can handle the steam of a kitchen or bathroom without peeling. Below are a few examples.
Pledges of £20–30 will be sent a tealight set made up of a reclaimed wood base, 1, 2 or 3 tealights and upcycled glass covers. Product photos are on their way but for the meantime, we’ve created some 3D models.
For an amazing pledge of £50 or more, you’ll get your hands on one of our small surprise gift boxes, filled with a selection of goodies we hope you’ll love. And because we know you’ll love what’s inside, we want to offer you a 5% discount on future orders.
For an astronomical pledge of £100 or more, you’ll be delivered on of our large surprise gift boxes, filled with an even bigger selection of goodies we hope you’ll love. And because we know you’ll love what’s inside, we want to offer you a 10% discount on future orders.
Extra funding
Any money raised that surpasses our £5000 target will go towards a van so The Glassifieds can start making regular glass collections and delivering finished products.
Currently, without permeant and reliable transportation, the stock being collected is rather erratic, making it difficult to plan products that require multiple of the same type of bottle.
It also creates a problem when our products are finished because they are generally quite bulky or fragile the cost of paying for delivery is unsightly. By factoring this cost into the retail price, it causes the product to no longer be the affordable easy choice we want it to be.
This project successfully funded on 1st April 2020