Charity scrapstore Glasgow Play Resource Association facing closure after failing to secure new home

A Glasgow charity that takes items destined for landfill and turns them into craft resources is facing closure if they can’t secure a new home.

For 38 years the Glasgow Play Resource Association has received donations of odds and ends, scraps and off cuts and sold them for next to nothing to organisations across the city.

However after their rent more than doubled last year, they moved into temporary offices in Bridgeton and now face leaving there with nowhere else to go.

“We’ve been running for 38 years going to companies and businesses and asking them what they have going to landfill and asking them if we can rescue it before it hits the skip and bring it in as a resource,” said Sarah Patterson from Glasgow Play Resource.

“We save roughly 15 tonnes from going to landfill every year and for a small charity run by volunteers that is a massive impact on the environment”

Ms Patterson worries what will happen to organisations that rely on them for materials, but also feels the environmental message they provide, about recycling and reusing, won’t be spread in the same way.

She told STV News: “This is a temporary fix [the current premises], we moved here in October and it was a huge move but it is only a temporary fix, we are here till maybe the end of April but we need permanent premises. If we don’t get them after 38 years we need to close.

“I worry about the effect that will have on our members, on our volunteers, our donators and also on the local environment – all that stuff going to landfill.”

Hundreds of local care homes, nurseries, after school clubs and art students use the association and are concerned about what would happen if it closed.

They say they couldn’t get hold of some of the materials they desperately need if the charity was to close.

Louise Reid, a community volunteer said: “Some of the groups I work with are young people and they are so aware of their carbon footprint – so when they know it’s come from where they like that.

“Money is tight at the moment they are getting even tighter and not having access to the cost effective materials would make a huge difference – the price differences at main shops are huge.

Amanda McDade, an out of school carer, said: “There are some things that just wouldn’t be economically viable or even able to get hold of, I don’t know anywhere else you could go and get 50 egg boxes and 30 paper towel rolls to make binoculars and caterpillars and this and that out of.

“Having this means children can explore their own creativity in lots of different ways – it provides limitless opportunities for them”.