On the 18th November 2020 Vakin held the second regional workshop to lift and discuss development opportunities for reuse in the Umeå area.
Naturally, the workshop was held digitally and 25 delegates from non-profit organizations, the municipality of Umeå, the regional development office, commercial enterprises and Vakin participated.
The workshop started with a digital guiding of ReTuna in Eskilstuna where Sofia Bystedt presented how their business model works from collection to sales. Retuna is the world’s first reuse shopping mall with 14 different reuse shops selling reuse products. The products are sourced from the municipality owned recycling centres. This was followed by a presentation of a newly started initiative in Umeå based on a partnership between Coompanion (business start-up incubator), Diös (major property owner in Umeå) and Vakin. The initiative called RE Umeå will provide a platform for start-up companies to develop ideas connected to reuse products. The initiative will develop ideas related to commercial reuse and draws inspiration from ReTuna in Eskilstuna.
A first step in this project is the establishment of a showroom to present products that have been discarded and placed in containers at Vakin’s recycling centres and present them in a commercial retail environment. This as a way of demonstrating the large latent potential for sourcing reuse products from recycling centres. The main portion of the workshop was based around group discussions. The stakeholders were divided into four groups each focusing on a specific aspect of the reuse chain. With ReTuna’s business model as a base (SMEs connected to a supply of reuse products from municipality owned recycling centres), the delegates discussed how economically viable reuse could be facilitated. The discussion groups were: Collection, Sorting, Sales and Influencing attitudes. The discussions were very productive and both new and established ideas were ventilated and discussed. There was a high level of involvement from the delegates even though the workshop was held digitally.
