About Bits and Bobs

Bits and Bobs is a social enterprise that aims to create employment for people with disabilities in a reuse business and related environmentally friendly ventures. 

Bits and Bobs business was chosen and developed by a founding group of 6 people with learning disabilities who had little or no experience of paid work. Their ambitions for the project were threefold:

• to create jobs for themselves in a social enterprise
• to improve the environment
• to contribute a valuable service to the community

As Bits and Bobs supporter environmental campaigner Dr David Bellamy commented on the day of the launch:

“Bits and Bobs is a great idea.  It puts people and resources back to into  work and does away with waste at the same time.”

What do we do?

Bits and Bobs collects safe, clean waste materials such as paper, cork, fabric, paint and sticky back plastic from a wide variety of businesses across Edinburgh. These are then sorted and displayed to be picked up cheaply by our members at the store. A supply of complementary new items, such as glue and brushes, are also stocked.

The majority of Bits and Bobs members are community groups such as playschemes, after school clubs, nurseries, day centres and schools.  However, anyone can become a member of the store and pick up low cost items for art, crafts and play.

Bits and Bobs main aim at present is to introduce to as many groups as possible the concept of a reuse store as a first port of call for the ethical shopper to buy art materials and to contribute to the establishment of a new culture of reuse and recycling throughout Scotland.

Bits and Bobs is a project of Intowork, SCO 28327  a Scottish  registered charity which  creates employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Since opening its doors in September 2001 Bits and Bobs has grown steadily. Nowadays five staff support around 15 people with disabilities per year to grow the business and develop it to a point where it can become an independent social firm.

Our clients are people with disabilities who want to move into employment and are interested in either:

• training to become an employee of a social firm
• training in office, retail or warehouse work with a view to moving into paid work