After moving, you bought new plates and now they are sitting on top of the old ones. A few of them have already broken, but the “survivors” are nice and it’s a shame to throw them away. Maybe you don’t even know which container they belong in…
Well, not in Brno, where “the best waste is that which is not created at all!” The City of Brno operates a range of services for the productive use of old or unwanted items, including RE-USE, RE-NAB, RETRO-USE and JSEM ZPĚT, further information about all of which can be found on the sako.cz website.
The RE-NAB bank was created for furniture (including garden furniture, but excluding upholstered furniture for hygiene reasons). The furniture donated is then used by clients of the social welfare department when furnishing their flats. The biggest demand is for kitchen furniture, tables and chairs. Furniture is accepted at the waste collection centres (SSOs) on Hapalova, Jedovnická, Jana Svobody, Dusíkova, Okružní, Ukrainská and Sochorova. Since the service began, the centres have accepted roughly 1,200 pieces of furniture weighing 72 tons, which were able to support 160 families.
The RE-USE centres accept books, sports equipment, toys, CDs and DVDs, dishes and household items, and other smaller household items. You can find them at seven SSOs: Hapalova, Jedovnická, Jana Svobody, Dusíkova, Okružní, Ukrainská and Sochorova. The donated items are then resold for low prices, with the money going towards the care of greenery and green spaces in Brno.
Items with an older production date (before 1989) are welcome at RETRO-USE, which recently opened a new collection point on Drobný (on the site of the former Billa). Old photos, books, personal documents, household items (even if you don’t know what they were originally used for!) and sports equipment can find a new purpose here, for example, in the prop rooms of theatres, museums, etc, supported by Brno company Amerfo.
Still-functioning electrical appliances that are duplicates or have been replaced by more modern versions can be put to new use through the JSEM ZPĚT project. Appliances are collected in the SSO on Jedovnicka, where technicians check them, make any minor repairs needed, and redistribute them to places where they are needed, such as homeless shelters or the Kangaroo Fund for Endangered Children. The City of Brno and its municipal company SAKO Brno cooperate with the operator of the collective system ELEKTROWIN on the project.
