A couple of years ago, Fingal County Council staff noticed that musical instruments were being disposed of at their recycling centres, many of which were in good working order.
In 2019, Fingal County Council established an Instruments Reuse Project, establishing a collection facility at the recycling centres and cleaning and mending the instruments where needed. Once ready, instruments were re-distributed to a variety of community organisations such as centres for autism, addiction and rehabilitation. In the first 2 years, over 60 instruments have been re-homed.
Based on the initial success of the pilot, Fingal County Council now accepts instruments at recycling centres in Estuary, Swords and Coolmine.
Following on from the success of Fingal’s pilot, Monaghan County Council initiated a similar project in 2020. This is ongoing and to date has rehomed 20 instruments including guitars, banjos, fiddles, mandolins, keyboards and a drum kit.
A case study is available on the work carried out by both Fingal and Monaghan here.