GreenBiz IJmond is pleased that more and more entrepreneurs want to do business in a circular way. ‘To help them on their way, we are supporting the development of the WOW Factory’, says Erna Hilbers, Upcycle Your Waste partner (IJmond, the Netherlands). ‘We want to inspire the regional business community in a circular way with success stories and handy tools.’ That is why we are creating the Wonderful Opportunities of Waste (WOW) Factory.
Since the kick-off conference of the European project Upcycle Your Waste in February 2021, GreenBiz IJmond has also the focus on circular economy. ‘Our goal is to achieve a waste reduction of 20 precent at at least one hundred participating IJmond companies.’, explains Erna Hilbers. ‘To achieve this, we informed companies last year that part of their industrial waste can often be reused if it is converted into new raw materials. In addition, we performed 220 waste scans.’ Besides that, we produced a couple of products to help (local) entrepreneurs. Now it is time to present all our products – besides the Upcycle Your Waste and GreenBiz IJmond website – at one place: the WOW Factory.
WOW factory
The Wonderful Opportunities of Waste (WOW) Factory – a circular store – will be opened on the Kennemerlaan in IJmuiden (the Netherlands) on 14 February. ‘This WOW Factory is physical place, where people can see with their own eyes how beautiful circular products are’, says Erna Hilbers. ‘When entrepreneurs renew their office furniture, old desks are often thrown away. That is a missed opportunity, because you can make paintings, whiteboards and all kinds of other wall decorations from the sheets. While you can again manufacture coat racks, photo frames and lamps from the bases. In this way you give discarded material a wonderful second life.’
The objective of the WOW Factory is to jointly make the IJmond smarter in the field of circularity. ‘That’s why we call on IJmondial entrepreneurs to join in, so that we can come to new collaborations. As a company, do you want to explore your opportunities? Or do you have a circular product with which you want to achieve a larger market? Let us know.
All the Upcycle Your Waste products will be presented as well.
