Small Charities Week 2024 – The One Project Macclesfield: supporting and engaging the local and global community to support sustainable living

By Graham Brown: CVS Operations and Insight lead and Food Coordination lead

As part of this year’s Small Charities week, we’re shining a light on Macclesfield based Environment and community group - The One Project.

 We sat down with founder Kate (Ellis) to ask her a few questions.

 So, Kate…how / where did it all start.

 I set up the One Project in 2021 with the aim of reducing and repurposing items so, saving them from landfill. 

Initially it was mostly plastic recycling  via TerraCycle and a number of independent companies and we were based at Scoop and Scales (another Macclesfield based environmental group). We started with 22 types of recycling / reuse streams – collecting around 1-2 per month as an independent project I ran since 2018 Kate Does Recycling. 6 years later we now have over 45 different recycle / reuse streams of hard to recycle items. Everything from tupaware to reading glasses We’re now collecting 5 tonnes.

We try to get as many recycling streams as possible, but not all of them make money. Some we donate to charities - like bras to breast cancer charities, blis, plastic bottle tops to a community interest company in Stockport. We give our pens to Tytherington High School. We collect anything from milk bottle caps to old coins. Reading glasses go to the Lions Club in Gawsworth and helps raise funds for them. Fabric ties current go to the Silk museum to create art projects.

Where are you getting your funding? 

We get a small number of small value grants from organisations like the community fridge Hubbub and Co-op. But it’s the income from plastics recycling that allow us to do other things. 

For example, expanding into the gardening: it allowed us to buy materials and equipment. We are promoting grown your own through our Urban Garden in Macclesfield Town Centre and our other garden projects around the town. Including school gardens, Macclesfield train station, planters around the Town Centre and Flower beds outside the Heritage Centre (where Scoop and Scales are based).  Alongside the gardening we run plant and seed swaps and sell plants we’re grown to help fund our projects.

The Grant Funding has allowed us to open up both a community clothes stall and a Shed stall in Macclesfield Indoor Market. The clothes stall is incredibly popular: people either provide a small financial donation for new and pre loved or swap their clothes for items from the stall. We’ve expanded this to include accessories, small household items & books. The Shed stall includes items you would find in a shed, garage or greenhouse. People drop off items and people can take and leave a donation of their choice.

The money raised from these stalls goes back into increasing the number of green spaces within our town and surrounding areas, helping the local community, and running the Hive where we offer free classes and talks. It’s also where OneProject Ukraine are based.

Tell us about the Community Fridge…

Following a visit to the Surplus Food Grocery provided by Cre8 – at the height of the Cost of Living Crisis - we realised local supermarkets were throwing away food. But families were struggling to feed themselves.

So, going back to our original aim of reducing and repurposing we decided we needed to do something about it. So, through food redistribution schemes such as Caboodle and Neighbourly we started picking up from local supermarkets and distributing to other community groups and individuals. When we released there was funding available through Hubbub for a Community Fridge. So, it was ‘no brainer’. We could collect more and collect fresh items. We’re now working with more supermarkets, with local growers, with schools and with local food businesses. We’re also working with all the other Macclesfield based community food projects. We’re proud to be the first Community Fridge in Cheshire East. We now have a community freezer too. And we’re supporting around 200 people each week.

 So, what’s next?

 Well, unfortunately, we need to move from our current location in Macclesfield Indoor Market. This is scheduled for August. So that’s keeping me very busy.  Beyond that we’re looking at offering meals made from surplus food once we are in our new venue. We are also working hard on a big school garden project at Ivy Bank Primary School so the team will be busy there. This will include a garden club once the garden is complete and will project growing your own food.

We’re small in size – we operate with 25 core and 10 "seasonal" volunteers. But our impact is big. We want to carry on doing more.

Can you help the One Project? Get in touch via oneprojectmacc@gmail.com or follow them on Facebook.