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The RE-CASK promotional video.

As the first window of funding comes to an end, we’re taking a look back through our achievements, discoveries and progress in moving towards a more low carbon future.

With our whisky barrel project, RE-CASK, we’ve been able to work our way through approximately 80 oak barrels since the beginning, preventing around 4 tonnes of CO₂ from entering our atmosphere.

Since early 2020, we’ve developed four pilot product ranges and several innovative processing techniques, which have unlocked a whole World of potential for bringing these oak barrels into the circular economy. We’ve spoken to a whole range of people, including businesses, organisations, designers, architects and more, in order to gain valuable insights on how these products could be put into practice, and how we can fine tune them. We also began investigating the impact of the pandemic, and how this has altered what our customers – new and existing – may need, and how these products could help to create innovative solutions.

Along with a wide-ranging portfolio of products, including outdoor furniture, cladding, play equipment and fencing, our unique Grading and Parallel Processing techniques are some of our proudest achievements.

With a highly unusual curved trapezoid shape the staves are notoriously challenging to work with. Combined with the laborious selection process of choosing staves of a specific width, it’s easy to see why little has been done with whisky barrels. For example, a customer or project may specify 40 staves at 120mm. Without our Graded Staves, this might involve breaking down 40 barrels to obtain those 40 staves. And this process would have to be carried out every time, for each and every project and customer. But by having a stock of these categorised staves, this process is now so much more efficient.

Our Parallel Processing technique has been designed to tackle the curved trapezoid shape. By transforming the profile of the staves more towards a rectangular shape, we’ve been able to successfully apply the staves to several of the RE-CASK product ranges. It essentially allows each of the staves to sit precisely alongside one another within their final configuration, and it has also opened up so much potential for those looking to create for themselves. Architects, interior designers and furniture designers for example, now have a material which is far more manageable and useable.

Inspiration: the PD3 Design Space by Richard Shed Studio

Using our Grading and Parallel Processing, it’s the fencing and screens is where there seems to be lots of unusual and practical applications. With the correct fixtures, they could be used as social distancing measures, both indoors and outdoors, as partitions for home offices, moveable and static dividers in commercial spaces like offices and meeting rooms; in bars, restaurants, and even schools; as bin stores, garden partitions and fencing, and so much more. Creatively, they could be used to build bespoke 2 storey sculptural pieces like the one above by Richard Shed Studio, utilising the variety of stave configurations we offer. The opportunities are the limits of your imagination.

Outdoor Play Equipment – Climbing Blocks

Our other ranges also saw positive developments. The outdoor play equipment was put to the test by the children at Milton Community Garden, part of the North Glasgow Community Food Initiative. As a result we’ve been able to make adaptations to improve the safety and longevity of the products even more. See them in action here!

The Checkerboard Cladding within an interior space

Our cladding range was expanded to include some more unusual and creative options, and some of our outdoor furniture pieces were featured in the RE-CASK promotional video above. After several inquiries we’re excited to see on which streets and outdoor spaces the furniture will end up, and the spaces in which our unique cladding will feature! You’ll see below our bench designed in collaboration with Sustrans as part of their Pocket Places project, which you can read more about here.

Although it’s the end of the first stage of the project, we’re very excited to see how RE-CASK will evolve and become part of the GWR portfolio. These oak casks have so much potential, in not only helping us move towards a lower carbon future, but also allowing GWR to continue providing valuable training and employment opportunities to those in the Glasgow area.

It’s good-bye for now from the RE-CASK team, but not from the project. Head to the RE-CASK project page to view the digital catalogues, and please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you’d like to chat about any of the product ranges.

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January

National Lottery Community Fund Grant 

A great start to the year with a new grant to allow us to continue to deliver training courses at GWR. After the success of our Making Wood Work employability programme we were committed to continuing to deliver training with a focus more on health and wellbeing – and in particular, reducing the impact of social isolation.

January – April 

Developing Wood Unlimited 6 week programme

Work began on developing the Wood Unlimited programme to help people get some structured activity into their week, get out and meet some new people & learn woodworking skills. Our aims are to:

• Get more people active and bridge the gap between individuals and the wider community.
• Link people into groups and activities to promote continued participation beyond the duration of the course.

May

Pilot Wood Unlimited Course 

The first course started with 8 participants and all 8 completed the course and enjoyed the mix of activities. We worked closely with The Conservation Volunteers to bring in elements of outdoor and conservation activities to the course.

Get on your bike

In the summer we got on our bikes for the Glasgow and Clyde Cycle challenge and came second in the team contest with a total of 2643 miles. 15 people took part working out at an average of 176 miles each. To help keep our bikes in working order we also ran a 4 week bike maintenance course with Dei’ils on Wheels to teach our cyclists basic bike maintenance skills.

June

Designs on Growth

Our continued efforts to tackle social exclusion and promote sustainability were boosted by the announcement of significant funding from the Scottish Government and European Union for our Designs on Growth project. Our goal is to make 30 well designed, functional products from reclaimed wood. The products are handmade by volunteers in our workshop and are available to purchase. These products will help us generate more sustainable income allowing us to grow our training and volunteer opportunities and skills development program.

July

Wood Unlimited Community short course

We delivered a Wood Unlimited short course out in the community at Elder Street women’s project in Govan. We were approached by staff at the unit with a request to help them make use of their outdoor space and improve the outside of their project. We were able to spend 6 weeks working with their residents to capture their ideas and help them to build and decorate their own planter boxes.

August

Awarded funding from Cycling Scotland to complete cycling facilities at GWR

We were lucky to gain some additional funding from Cycling Scotland to complete our bike shelter project and improve facilities for cyclists at GWR. We now have covered bike storage for 16 bikes, changing and drying facilities for our cyclists and a pool bike with equipment to allow people who don’t have their own bike to get involved.

October

Wood Unlimited short course piloted 

The response to the 2 day wood unlimited course has been really positive – but there were some people who indicated that they would like to take part in woodworking activity but were unable to commit to 2 days. In response to this feedback we launched the Wood Unlimited short course allowing people to participate in a gentle introduction to woodworking focusing on the safe use of hand and power tools, wood joining techniques and working on a few simple products.

November

Awarded funding from JIGSAW to develop taster sessions for referral agencies

We were awarded funding from NHS Jigsaw project to help support people in Yoker & Drumchapel who are experiencing mental ill health and social isolation. We will use this funding to put on taster woodwork sessions for referral agencies working with people experiencing mental ill health in Drumchapel and Yoker – as well as providing our staff team with mental health awareness training.

Impact Arts visited us at Glasgow Wood Recycling as part of their Creative Pathways project. The young people learned how to make planters from recycled wood and then took them to Arthurlie Family Centre to create new greenery for their garden.

We also attended the Scottish Design Exchange (SDX) for the visit of Aileen Campbell MSP & Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government to discuss social enterprises. She was excited to hear about the work of Glasgow Wood Recycling, our training and volunteer programme and our Designs on Growth Project.

December

Nice Markets 

Our design team attended the Nice Market at St Silas Church in the West End to soft launch our new small products. The market was a success and it was great to get feedback about our new range from shoppers and other stallholders.

Christmas Lunch 

GWR took the team out for a Christmas Lunch of buffet and bowling. In all over 40 people came along and a good time was had by all. It was a lovely way to say thank for all the hard work over the last year making 2018 our most successful to date. In 2018 was an exceptional year for volunteers at GWR as we had 80 active volunteers of which 36 were new to the team. Those 80 people carried out 2409 volunteer days which works out at 16505 volunteer hours. Thanks and well done!

Looking Forward 

2019 looks set to be another positive year for Glasgow Wood Recycling! Our Designs on Growth project is really starting to take shape now with 13 new products and more in the pipeline. These products will help us generate more sustainable income allowing us to grow our training, volunteer opportunities and skills development program.

We look forward to bringing in more trainees to our Wood Unlimited training course – as well as welcoming new volunteers to Glasgow Wood Recycling. Volunteers are at the heart of Glasgow Wood Recycling, playing an active and valuable role in all aspects of the enterprise.

We have also been nominated for an award! We are finalists in the Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards within the Sustainability category. The awards are aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, celebrating those whose businesses are contributing to economic growth, social and environmental wellbeing. The Winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on 13 March 2019 in Liverpool – so keep your fingers crossed for us!

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