The goals of the programme are both economic and environmental supporting business to reduce their waste costs, reduce their purchasing costs through accessing cheaper reusable materials and through identification of new business opportunities from turning a waste into a resource. All this equates to less waste going to landfill, an increase in the levels of recycling and reuse of materials and the associated environmental benefits with these measures.


Technical Assistance:

SMILE have recently added a new dimension to the programme and are now offering technical assistance to companies nationwide.  There is a technical consultant located in each of the three waste management regions who are assisting businesses in identifying reuse outlets for their waste or indeed identifying resources which they can reuse in their processes. The technical consultant in the Southern region is Mark McConnell from ECOS Environmental, Shane Mooney from SPeco Services in the Connacht Ulster region and Kara Flannery & Elisabeth Nagel from Flannery & Nagel Environmental in the Eastern Midlands Region.  They would be more than delighted to engage with businesses in your region.  

Businesses that could benefit:

SMILE are looking to engage with businesses from across the sectors and in particular the SME sphere where often the technical knowledge to identify such economically beneficial synergies are usually not in-house.   To get an idea of the type of businesses SMILE work with and the resources that have been exchanged please visit here.For example there is a company in Dublin, Rebox Recycling who, following a synergy with Xerox identified by SMILE, received 87 tonnes of cardboard boxes which they remade into new boxes generating revenue and creating 1 job. Xerox previously would have sent the resource to recycling and ultimately this would have been exported, along with the economic value. This ongoing synergy and other synergies identified through SMILE has helped Rebox sustain over 6 jobs they claim. A company in Cork called Mamukko, who design high end quality bags from reusable materials, have through SMILE been connected with over 10 companies to help them access different reusable materials.  

Contact:

The Project coordinator Katherine Corkery can be contacted for further information by email here or 026 20520 if anyone has any questions. SMILE Resource Exchange are based in Macroom E Enterprise Centre, Macroom Environmental Industrial Park Ltd, see here for more information.