A borough-based recycling scheme at a prison has been honoured with a royal award.

Tier1 in Whitefield has received the King's Award for Enterprise – Creating Opportunity for its recycling programme at HMP Hindley.

The programme was praised for its environmental benefits and for helping prisoners reintegrate into society.

The reoffending rate for prisoners who have been through the programme over the last 10 years is just six per cent, compared to a national average of 26.1 per cent.

The Lord Lieutenant for Greater Manchester, Diane Hawkins, presented the award to Tier1.

She said it was "only the eighth award for Promoting Opportunity granted in the UK this year" and praised the business for running a programme "of such great value to those in prison".

Director and co-founder of Tier1, Jonathan Rose, said: "The HMP Hindley programme isn’t a tick box green initiative that we do just to make ourselves feel good.

"It’s a programme that has real and long-lasting societal value.

"To date, the programme has generated over £4.2m in societal savings."

Tier1 works with global organisations to achieve their environmental, social, and governance goals through sustainable, secure, and compliant IT lifecycle solutions.

This includes refurbishing, remanufacturing, and redeploying or reselling end-of-life IT equipment.

The company saves an average of 120,000 laptops and PCs from ending up in landfills each year.

The prison programme is centred around end-of-life IT disposal, with equipment that can’t be refurbished or redeployed sent to the HMP Hindley workshop.

Here, it is broken down into components and precious metals that are refined and reused.

Proceeds from the recycling contribute to the "Through The Gate" programme.

Tier1 also provides training to prisoners with an ETCAL Level 2 Certificate in IT Recycling and offers pre- and post-release support.

This includes employability skills, health and wellbeing, housing, employment advocacy, digital connectivity, training, and one-to-one support.

More than 150 prisoners who have gone through the programme are now in employment, apprenticeships, volunteering, and work experience.

Several have been employed directly by Tier1.

Mr Rose said: "Around half of all crime committed is by people who have already been through the criminal justice system – and the cost of reoffending to the taxpayer is estimated to be as much as £18bn per annum.

"Our aim, albeit on a small scale, is to reduce this cost by providing education, training, opportunity, and support for those in prison so that when they’re released, they have a real chance to move on and build a new, happy, crime-free life for themselves."

The King’s Award for Tier1 follows on from the business receiving the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2019.