WHAT happens to broken furniture, odd crutches or redundant medical equipment at Salisbury District Hospital?

Thanks to Mark Brandon and his dedicated team of volunteers, the furniture is repaired and reused in the hospital or offered for sale, the crutches get matched up in pairs, refurbished and are returned to A&E or other departments and the medical equipment is sent to African hospitals.

The recycling volunteers group was set up in August 2010 to enable the large amount of furniture and equipment that needed mending or updating to be refurbished and reused within the hospital Trust. Already around 40 per cent of black-bag waste is prevented from going to landfill at the hospital and the 40-foot trailer on site gets loaded with baled paper, cardboard, cans, glass, polythene and plastics. This, Mark tells me, is collected monthly and the hospital gets paid at the market rate.

He said: “Our department is all about reuse and, since we have moved to this redundant ward, we have got bigger and bigger. Furniture and other items make their first stop in the triage room, appropriately enough named, where an assessment is carried out.”

Mark’s wife Sue is in charge of assessment, deciding whether a table needs resurfacing or a cabinet can be mended. Then I am shown the furniture store.

“This is the IKEA of Salisbury District Hospital,” says Sue proudly, showing me stacks of furniture that has been repaired and cleaned and waiting for new homes.

“We try and throw away as little as possible,” explains Mark. “ We get the most incredible stuff in here, such as an old museum case and stretchers, but new homes are found for most things.”

Volunteers wear black uniforms proudly wearing the logo ‘This fleece is made from 44 recycled plastic bottles’ and each volunteer brings a different skill base to the team of 14.

“One volunteer is a whizz with locks, another is an electrician and then we have Don the stripper,” says Mark.

The recycling volunteers group is selffinancing.

“We need some money for tools,”

says Mark, “but the surplus goes to the hospital’s Stars Appeal or to ArtCare. We are currently working with ArtCare on a project for the elderly care wards.”

Mark could also do with some more volunteers. He said: “We are a disparate group of people meeting on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but with one thing in common, a great sense of humour and camaraderie.”

Anyone interested can contact Mark at mark.brandon@salisbury.nhs.uk.

* Furniture, books and other items are available for sale to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9.30am to 4.30pm from the recycling centre in the south corridor at Salisbury District Hospital. If you take entrance B to the hospital and turn right down the passageway next to the zebra crossing, you will see the trolley of books for sale outside the entrance to the recycling centre.