Sustainability
In this era of increasing ecological awareness and the pressing need for sustainability, TWAM is filling a gap in efforts to reduce waste and carbon emissions in the UK. We do this through our extensive tool collection and refurbishment. Our environmental impact is not just a by-product of our operations; it is integral to our mission. We aim to turn waste into opportunity, transforming discarded tools into means of livelihood for communities in need while contributing to the fight against climate change.
CO2 emissions saved
Taking into account the amount of tools that we reuse and recycle (around 375.5 tonnes a year), preventing them from ending up in landfills, we save around 1051 tonnes of CO2 emissions every single year.
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(based on a report by the DEFRA Waste Statistics Team which inferred that recycling 1 tonne of metal saves approx. 2.8 tonnes of CO2 emissions)
Value of tools sent
We sent 23 containers full of over 20,000 tools to Africa last year - and this will continue to increase every year. These tools are all donated by generous people across England and Wales, and if we were to buy them new, they would cost well over £2 million.
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Tools sent to Africa
We send nearly 200 tonnes of unwanted, refurbished tools to Africa every year. This keeps them out of UK landfills where they would pollute our soil and water systems and instead allows people living in rural African communities to create their own livelihoods.
Metal sent for recycling
Unfortunately, we sometimes receive tools that are too damaged or unsuitable to be sent to Africa. But we're determined not to let them go to waste!
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To ensure that they're put to good use, we sell them to Sackers, our local waste management company. Sackers process all the metal using their fragmentiser, separating it into ferrous, non-ferrous, and waste materials, and then shredding it into small pieces. The resulting shredded steel is sold to customers, melted down, and reused.
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We also extract copper from wires and salvage any other metal that we can find.