Lancashire County Council's award-winning Reuse Hub

Lancashire County Council was awarded the Best Service Team of the Year: Recycling, Waste and Circular Economy at the APSE Service Awards in Liverpool, recognising the positive social and environmental impact of their Reuse Hub initiative.  

The Reuse Hub was created to respond to two growing challenges in the region: the increasing numbers of local families struggling to access essential household goods and the volume of good-quality items being discarded at recycling centres.  

A central element of the Hub is collaboration and partnership working across the council and beyond. Initially, the council’s waste services team and children and family wellbeing service team recognised the potential for discarded coats to benefit local children who were regularly attending school without adequate warm clothing.  

The Reuse Hub team was able to rescue reusable items from recycling centres and redistribute them free of charge to those in need. Since then, the Reuse Hub has supported many council services by keeping valuable items in use for longer. Reusable items are sourced from recycling centres and redistributed free of charge, helping to provide practical support to people in need. 

The Reuse Hub’s collaboration with the Child and Youth Justice Service further highlights its commitment to supporting the local community. Online orders are delivered by a youth worker accompanied by young people undertaking court-ordered reparation work who gain meaningful and practical work experience. 

The service has also partnered with the local prison service, which professionally launders all reused textiles, ensuring they are clean and ready for use. The Reuse Hub supports a broad range of council services to make cost savings and to promote better outcomes. The team worked with the Refugee Integration Service to coordinate a collection of suitcases from recycling centres, helping to provide refugees with suitable luggage, as well as storage and kitchen equipment for young people leaving care. 

Choice and autonomy are also at the heart of the initiative. The scheme initially began as a Facebook Marketplace page, where professionals could view the available items alongside the people they were supporting, enabling individuals to choose the items that best meet their needs.

Following a rapid increase in demand, the council developed a bespoke website to help manage stock, monitor outcomes and provide users with a more accessible and intuitive experience. Now, eight years on from its launch, the Reuse Hub has evolved into a successful online shopping style platform with a wide variety of free items for service users to choose from. 

Simple to access and easy to use, the Reuse Hub connects council and local voluntary services with reusable items that can make a real difference to people in need. Alongside its wide-reaching social benefits, the Reuse Hub has significantly reduced waste and contributed towards the organisation’s goal to advance the circular economy.  

Between January to December 2024, the Reuse Hub kept 18.8 tonnes of items in circulation, rising significantly to 22.7 tonnes in 2025, and generated 98.5 tonnes of carbon savings.  

Staff members in recycling centres are now specifically trained to identify suitable reusable items, understand their value and ensure a supply of good quality items are available to service users.  

Demand for the Reuse Hub has grown rapidly, with 2,730 people supported through the service in 2024 and a further 2,822 people supported in 2025. Looking to the future, the council hopes to broaden its reach, enhance its capacity and build on its strong network of partnerships, maximising both its environmental impact and the support available to local communities. 

Read about the APSE Annual Service Awards 2026 here