Sir Bob Russell talks to an entrepreneurial, eco-minded young mum benefitting from the Government’s Kickstart scheme

SEVERAL weeks ago, I featured a fledgling business started by an enterprising young mother which involves the collection and recycling of ink cartridges used in home printers.

Around one million are bought every week in the UK, with an estimated 80 per cent thrown into the waste system and dumped in landfill sites where they take hundreds of years to decompose.

What started out two years ago as a part-time interest had grown substantially, to the point where she was faced with the dilemma of whether to give up her job as a special needs teacher and instead concentrate full-time on taking her business forward.

It was very much a chicken and egg situation, but dare she take the risk?

Thanks to a Government initiative – promoted as “Kickstart” by the Department for Work and Pensions – she has now gone full-time with financial support for six months to employ three young people in the hope this will enable her business to proceed into the future as a successful company.

The enterprising north Essex mother of two sons of primary school age is Becky Baines, whose ink cartridge recycling business is called The Ink Bin.

It is now set for growth as she seeks to encourage more people to deposit their used ink cartridges in an increasing number of ‘ink bins’ she has negotiated to be located in a growing number of supermarkets and other outlets, plus more than 200 schools across the UK, including a dozen in the Colchester area, who benefit financially with a percentage of the proceeds.

Also locally, the East of England Co-operative Society has agreed to put a dozen of her colourful cardboard bins in their larger stores, in addition to those already at Co-op branches at West Mersea, Wivenhoe and Earls Colne.

Proceeds from these three bins go respectively to West Mersea Lions Club, Tendring Primary School and Earls Colne Scouts.

There is also a bin at Sainsbury’s, Stanway, and in the Emmaus charity shop in Colchester High Street.

Last month supermarket group Waitrose piloted The Ink Bin at their store in Farnham, Hampshire, which, if successful, could see collecting boxes placed in Waitrose supermarkets throughout the country.

Becky, who lives at Chappel, has now made the great leap forward with three young people joining her business (which operates from former farm buildings at Mount Bures) thanks to the Kickstart scheme.

This is a measure introduced by the Government to help both employers and young people develop the skills they need, with added emphasis as the country emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic regulations.

Kickstart allows employers to take on those in the age range of 16 to 24 who are claiming Universal Credit and are at risk of long-term unemployment.

This financial support is for six months, during which the young employee is funded in full by the Government, for 25 hours a week, at the level of at least the national minimum wage.

Two of the three young people who have started work for The Ink Bin are Justin Simpson, 22, from Sudbury, whose last job was a building site labourer, and Kynan Hammond, 20, from Glemsford, previously a helper for a delivery company but who was laid off because of Covid-19 restrictions.

The third young person is due to start next week.

Becky is full of praise for the Colchester and Sudbury jobcentres, who worked jointly to secure the jobs at The Ink Bin, overcoming initial difficulties caused by her business being based in Essex but all three of the young employees living in Suffolk.

She is also grateful to Harwich and North Essex MP Sir Bernard Jenkin for his assistance.

She added: “DWP officials Kate Bloom and Adam Rainey made all the difference in helping me navigate through the red tape.

“It is now down to me to make The Ink Bin the commercial and environmental success I believe it can be, because if it works out then it will not only be a fulfilled dream for me running my own environmental business, but it will also be jobs for these three fantastic young people and I am convinced also more jobs for others in the future.

“Of course, it will also mean fewer ink cartridges being dumped.”

The Ink Bin has already recycled tens of thousands of empty cartridges.

Most can be refilled by a specialist company which Becky sends them to and they are then sold as re-manufactured ink cartridges.

She explained: “I was aware of the huge problem of ink cartridges being thrown away when they are empty, so in 2019 I started The Ink Bin in my spare time while in the day I was a special needs teacher.

“I contacted schools and supermarkets, inviting them to have one of my cartridge collecting boxes for pupils and customers to dispose of their cartridges – not just because of environmental reasons which was my original intention, and still is, but because it is also a fundraiser for a local school or charity.”

The Ink Bin does not collect the bigger toner cartridges used by commerce. That is a different market for which the user should return cartridges to the manufacturer.

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The Ink Bin only deals with ink cartridges used in home printers.

Not all cartridges can be recycled. The unsuitable ones are sorted for eventual breaking up into pellets to be sold to companies who re-use plastic material.

Becky added: “I feel there is not enough public awareness that ink cartridges can be recycled.”

It is a labour-intensive activity to sort through all the different types of home-use ink cartridges, which she then couriers to a specialist company to be refilled.

They are then sold to shops.

Also part of The Ink Bin team is Fran Larkin, from Pebmarsh, who has just left Colchester Sixth Form College.

She plans on going to university to study classical civilisation and art history, the latter subject being what Becky graduated in from Essex University.

In addition to starting out as an eco-fundraising business for schools and charities, The Ink Bin also operates 'Eco-Kids' – a forum designed for busy school teachers who wish to establish eco-clubs within school.

Fran Larkin produces weekly newsletters which are-emailed to schools, but are also free to anyone to access online. She will continue to do this.

Further details about The Ink Bin can be obtained from theinkbin.co.uk – e-mail recycle@theinkbin.co.uk.