Camphill Foundation UK & Ireland has agreed to provide a loan to Tiphereth Camphill Edinburgh to help develop a “Licensed Waste Management” site to expand its social enterprise – Colinton Community Compost.
Colinton Community Compost (CCC) collects green waste from 500 houses in the local area on the southern edge of Edinburgh and transforms it into compost for sale back to local people. A new contract which is being negotiated will increase this number to 1200 houses. CCC has been running for ten years as a trading name of Tiphereth, Camphill in Edinburgh’s day service workshops. Now they will be able to sell to the general public through garden centres and farm shops and hope to be in full production by 2014.
They have a lease on an adjacent quarry that is used to carry out the work and this has been extended to allow for the creation of a “Licensed Waste Management” site which will also process waste from the Parks and Roads departments of the local Council. They need to build a high fence around the site and provide CCTV and security gates in order to be able to manage the incoming green waste and achieve PAS 100, Demeter and Soil Association certification. They will also invest in additional machinery and buildings to cope with these larger volumes.
The biggest change for Tiphereth is that CCC will, for the first time, employ and train up to five people with special needs. Paying people a salary is an enormous change for the care sector and they hope to facilitate people finding full time jobs, as this is the policy for people regarded as having ‘low needs’ in Scotland. CCC will be at the forefront of this policy change in Scotland.
For further information, please visit www.tiphereth.org.uk