They say one man's trash is another man's treasure - and that's certainly the case inside this huge Manchester warehouse filled with toys, furnishings, bikes, TVs and washing machines. Here at the Renew Hub on Trafford Park is where thousands of unwanted and unloved items left at 20 of Manchester's tips are taken to be given a new lease of life.
A dedicated team clean up, repair or completely refurbish items like cabinets, chairs, bikes and electricals - which then go up for sale at a fraction of the usual retail prices at three public Renew shops at tips in Altrincham, Oldham and Eccles.
You can get Dyson hoovers for £25, printers for £15 or a chest of drawers for £20. There are rows and rows of bikes that will be reconditioned and resold - from as little as £20 for kids' bikes up to £300 for sports bikes that would cost £750 or more to buy new.
Read more : The cake factory shop with cut-price caterpillar cakes, mini rolls, flapjacks and more
And key to all of this is that buying the goods also helps others too. All the money raised from the sales of the goods goes back to charities across Greater Manchester.
The Renew Hub is the biggest reuse and repair facility of its kind in the UK having first opened in a warehouse on Trafford Park a year ago. Since then it has "saved" some 50,000 unwanted items left at 20 of Manchester's household waste sites, or the local tip as most people call it.
People can either donate specifically at the tips - or experienced pickers there will spot items left to go for scrap that can then be refurbished and resold. Those items are then driven over to the Renew Hub where the work starts on giving them a new lease of life.
And the scale of this place is eye-popping. Walking into the warehouse which is the size of a football pitch there are rows and rows of bikes, chairs, cabinets, washing machines and fridge freezers.
There are also more unusual items - there's bags and bags of golf clubs and even skis that people have sent to the tip. There are electrical foot spas and heated rollers, music systems, speakers, electric guitars and amps.
Incredibly, the stash we see on our visit here is only a fortnight's worth of items salvaged from the tips. At the moment they're literally struggling to cope with the sheer volume of stuff coming in.
Their aim is to get items that are in good working order cleaned down and sent out to their three shops as soon as possible. Those shops are at Woodhouse Lane Altrincham, Arkwright Street in Oldham and Boysnope Wharf in Eccles.
They also work with five partner charities who come in every week to collect items that they can sell in their shops - while they also work with organisations to put together full care packages for people in need to furnish their homes.
For items considered of higher value, or furniture items that be "upcycled" in a new way, there's also an online eBay shop - Renew Greater Manchester. Items for this section are sent to the other side of the warehouse, where work will begin to "jazzy up" furnishings.
The eBay site only launched in July - but already they've sold £13,500 worth of goods on the online auction platform. Upcycled and reupholstered chairs are proving particularly popular, while they have teams of staff looking at stripping "unfashionable" dark wood furniture with brighter new colours to be more appealing to buyers.
Bosses here are also working hard to show off what they're doing at this vast site - they've created bright and colourful design "pods" where upcycled furniture is showcased in pretty cool room settings. All the items in these room sets will also go up for sale at some point to raise more money for the charities.
These are being called the "IKEA booths" by staff, where people can visualise how it can all come together with reused furnishings. There are plans for this site to be used as a unique events and educational space - to encourage both school children and corporate bookers to come and see how important it is to reuse and recycle goods.
In the past year a total of £320,000 has been raised from goods repaired and resold here. £100,000 of this goes directly to the Greater Manchester Mayor's Charity, with the other £220,000 available for community organisations to "bid" for funding each April.
The operation is all run by SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK on behalf of Greater Manchester Combined Authority. It handles a total of 1.1 million tonnes of waste annually, and in the past year has recycled 600,000 tonnes of that.
The aim is to continue to up that figure to recycle or reuse even more of the region's unwanted goods.
Daniel Carolan, operations manager for SUEZ in the north west, has watched as the Renew Hub has flourished from a standing start a year ago. He says: "When we first started we worried there wouldn't be enough items coming in, but now we have more stuff coming in than we can send out.
"People know a bit more now that they're able to donate items at the Household Waste centres, but we also have trained staff who know to go and intercept items that can be reused.
"We have three vans out on the road bringing stuff back here, and if you look around now this is just two weeks' worth. This warehouse is the size of a football pitch yet we've been to utilise every space from a blank canvas in the space of just six months."
Daniel says the aim is for goods that are simply too good to be going into landfill going into the hands of people who need it. They try to keep prices as low as possible - using a guide as roughly half the sort of price you would pay for items new.
He says: "What we want is for these items to go into good hands, we believe in what we’re trying to achieve here. Things like bikes that can't be reused, then the teams here will strip them down to use as spare parts wherever possible as well.
"But it's not a place for traders to come down, this is very much for the community."
Manchester Bike Kitchen is a community organisation that has benefitted from the charity funds - and also is now based within the Renew Hub. They're hard at work repairing old bikes, and also do workshops to help others learn how to do basic repairs.
Also key to the operation here is the charity programme, Recycling Lives, which aims to support men and women into stable employment after prison to learn new skills on the electrical and refurbishment side of things and valuable work experience. They run the pod on site with a qualified mechanic who is able to test and repair electrical items so that the items can be sold in the shops and online.
Items range from TVs, vacuum cleaners, and table lamps to more obscure electrical items such as bread ovens and fitness equipment.
Through the charity they run eight-week placements for people on probation to give them basic work skills to go on to employment. They also work with Styal Prison for longer placements of six months for people on temporary release from prison, who are also able to work across other pods doing upcycling and learning to reupholster.
A huge platform has been built in the warehouse that looks out across the site, and along it runs a colourful mural showing famous Manchester landmarks and people - with Timperley's Frank Sidebottom looming large. Next to the mural a row of chairs is placed - many of them would not look out of place in fancy interior shops - but incredibly they're all things people have sent to the tip as unwanted.
Daniel points out in one of the room sets a reupholstered sofa that people have been saying bears a remarkable likeness to a designer version on social media. He says it's all part of the Renew Hub's aim to make people take a different view of unwanted items.
Looking around the vast site he says he's proud of what has been achieved in such a short space of time. He says: "The sheer volume of preloved items we’re processing – that go to people who really need them in this current economic climate – is a triumph.
"We can’t thank everybody enough who is partnering with us and sharing their skills to enable this to succeed.”
Read next:
- Inside Will Mellor's family cafe in Romiley where villagers are cheering on Strictly star
- Stockport boozer goes viral with video showing pub regulars "living their best life"
- Bonfire Night is CANCELLED at Manchester parks as council blames "escalating costs"
- Historic Manchester pub shuttered for years to reopen this mont h
The secret cake outlet shop with cut-price caterpillar cakes, brownies, flapjacks and all sorts
