Over 5,000 walking aids reused for NHS and Ukraine

Crutches can be dropped off at recycling centres to be refurbished

More than 5,000 items of medical equipment, including crutches refurbished by prisoners, have been returned to the NHS and sent to Ukraine as part of a recycling scheme.

Neil Ducker, operations manager at Suez in Surrey, said the company was working in partnership with HMP Feltham to get the equipment back in shape.

"We have workshops there where they sanitise, rebuild and refurbish this equipment," he explained.

According to Suez, young offenders this year had dedicated more than 160 hours to the project, delivering over 700 crutches for Ukraine and returning 350 items to the NHS.

In 2022, Surrey's tips became an official collection points for walking aids, like crutches and walking frames.

Since then, 5,200 items had been put back into circulation within the NHS and as humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Mr Ducker said when the scheme started, the NHS locally had been "inundated" with equipment, leading to the partnership with the prison to work on the equipment.

Other items getting recycled at the tip included televisions, vacuum cleaners, and guitar amplifiers.

Geoff Parker is a portable appliance testing engineer at Suez, and says the custom made container he works out of in Guildford was built "from absolutely nothing".

With racks full of cables and guitars on the walls for testing amplifiers, Mr Parker said he kept leads because a lot of equipment would come in without one and could later be paired up and reused.

"If it's worth keeping I will keep it," he said.

Geoff Parker tests electrical equipment and pairs it up with missing cables so it can be reused.

He said a booking system being trialled by Surrey County Council at Camberley and Lyne (Chertsey) community recycling centres allowed the sites to know who was coming in and staff accordingly.

"In life you have to make appointments for lots of things now so that going to the recycling centre is just another thing you have to plan for, but you get a bit of service when you're here," he added.

Though he said visitors "weren't too thrilled" about the trial at first, he'd heard they now were "very happy with the service they're getting".

Gary Skinner is the site supervisor at Guildford

Gary Skinner, site supervisor at Guildford, has worked at the site for 27 years and has seen a decrease in the amount of waste going to landfill.

"Since I've been working, it's 100% changed," he said. "Now we recycle everything, water filters, stamps mobile phones, everything."