New Kernow Reuse Shop opens at Connon Bridge, near Liskeard

Rummaging through a skip is not most people’s idea of a bargain hunt, but the shelves at Cornwall’s recycling centres tell a different story every week. Furniture, toys and tools that still have plenty of life left in them get pulled aside before they ever reach the tip, and now there is one more place to find them.

Cornwall Council has confirmed that a new Kernow Reuse Shop has opened at Connon Bridge Household Waste and Recycling Centre, near Liskeard.

📷Credit: Cornwall Council

What’s on the shelves

Reuse shops exist to catch the items that still have a use in them before they go into the waste stream. At Connon Bridge, as at the council’s other sites, that means a changing mix of toys, homeware, electricals, furniture, tools, sports equipment and musical instruments, all priced to sell rather than sit around.

What turns up depends entirely on what residents bring in that week, so the shop’s stock is never quite the same twice. A dining table one visit might be replaced by a rack of bicycles the next.

📷Credit: Cornwall Council

Finding a Kernow Reuse Shop near you

Connon Bridge joins a growing network. Kernow Reuse Shops also operate at Truro, St Austell, Launceston, Falmouth, United Downs, St Erth, Helston and Bude, giving households across the county somewhere to sell on unwanted items and pick up something new to them without paying full price.

📷Credit: Cornwall Council

Before you visit

Some of Cornwall’s busier recycling centres require visitors to book a slot in advance, so it’s worth checking before setting off, particularly at weekends. Connon Bridge itself sits off the A390 near East Taphouse, a short drive from Liskeard, and the reuse shop keeps the same opening hours as the recycling centre around it.

Whether the new shelves at Connon Bridge end up full of garden tools or forgotten guitars will, as ever, come down to what the last van-load of visitors decided they no longer needed.

📷Credit: Cornwall Council