A retired teacher from Bute, who has enlisted the support of 22 transport companies in diverting unwanted school resources from landfill to the developing world, is appealing to Scottish local authorities for formal recognition.
David Hanschell set up Surplus Educational Supplies Foundation (SESF) as a charitable company last year, three years after launching the project in response to the hurricane disaster in Grenada in his native Caribbean. Since then he has shipped five container loads of furniture and other resources to the island, and last month the filling of a sixth container was completed in Livingston. Hanschell is now ready to extend the reach of the project to other Caribbean islands and Sierra Leone.
The enterprise has run entirely on goodwill and support in kind from a roll-call of the Scottish and UK logistics industry, including Forth Ports, J & J Denholm, Freightliner, John G Russell, WH Malcolm, Duncan Adams Transport and Shanks Waste Management.
"SESF has not traded as a company but has concentrated on the delivery of educational resources collected from four Scottish councils and one English council," Hanschell said. Unwanted resources from demolished schools in Argyll, Midlothian, Fife, West Lothian and the London borough of Ealing have been shipped.
But Hanschell believes the project has far more potential and is calling on councils to examine the costs and benefits of recycling materials to the developing world rather than handing them over to contractors.
"It is time local authorities recognised there is a more sustainable, climate-friendly and cheaper option to the current disposal of surplus educational resources.
"These are good-quality educational resources and councils are paying to have them dumped into landfill. What I am looking for is not a handout but a leg-up."
Other supporters include Sterling Yacht Services, Freight Container Services, J& J MacKirdy, Andrew Wishart & Sons, Fife Warehousing Company, Zim Shipping Services, Sea Freight Agencies, InterServe Projects, Ecosse World Express, FlexiTech, and Carson Transport Solutions.
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