MORE than 25 tonnes of white paper are recycled by the Ascent Group every month.
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Thousands of unsellable Rotary Book Fair books have their covers and spines removed before being shredded throughout the year.
The Ascent Group began in Armidale in the 1950s when there was little support for people with developmental disabilities.
CEO Peter Westbrook said the group employs 140 people in Armidale.
“There’s not a great range of supported employment opportunity around, we provide a supported employment option for people,” Mr Westbrook said.
“Alternative to that, someone with a disability would need to go through the normal labour market arrangements where an employer would be happy to employ them into their business.
“We’re providing employment into our organisation for those supported employees.”
The Ascent Group has been working with the Armidale Central Rotary Club book fair since its inception.
An employee attends regular Rotary club meetings and a number of people volunteer to set up for the book fair.
Chris Shmutter has worked for the Ascent Group for the past 10 years and said he likes working in the recycling department.
“I like working here, I like the sorting,” Mr Shmutter said.
“We take the covers off the books, fill the tubs up, cut the books and remove the covers.”
Mr Shmutter is primarily a confidential sorter, he takes the documents from places like the Armidale Hospital and has them shredded.
“Our employees receive training relevant to the activities we have. We have a component of recycling which has been built over time,” Mr Westbrook said.
“We provide secure destruction of that. That commodity then becomes recycled paper.
“There’s training across those activities but we also have a small business called Ascent Digital Print that provides digital printing into the local market.”
The Ascent Group also provides supported independent living.