Thursday, August 6, 2009

April 21 - resource reuse

I went to Reverse Garbage today. It's one of my favourite places in Brisbane.

As a founding member of RG I feel very passionately about the issue of resource use and reuse. My biggest interest in the management team was Education. By taking resources to schools and providing art activities I hoped to convey the awareness of where "stuff" comes from and the importance of considering the environmental impacts of manufacturing and resource use.

From it's early beginnings, the Education arm of RG has gone from strength to strength and I am really pleased to see the effect it's having on school students and the community in general. I believe that it's fundamental to the decisions made at management level in all areas of business to take into account the environmental impacts of projects being considered. The students of today will be the decision-makers of tomorrow and it's important for them to be aware of the environmental aspects of their decicions.

The main message of resource reuse is this -

Every time you manufacture something there are costs associated with it that go beyond the simple financial ones. These costs include the waste stream (leftovers and offcuts) and any pollutants involved (waste water, gases, smoke etc).

Whenever something reaches the end of its practical life it generally ends up in landfill unless some other strategy has been put into place.

Recycling is part of the resource use message but too often it's implemented as a first resort, rather than a last one. By this I mean that resources (like cardboard and paper) are pulped and remade rather than reused in the first instance. Whenever something goes back through the manufacturing process the waste stream is repeated. Reuse would minimise this.

The role of organisations such as Reverse Garbage is to divert the leftovers, offcuts, overruns and surplus stock from a range of businesses to the community for reuse in a variety of ways. Reuse can be the reuse of the product/item in it's original form/intention; reuse in a different application in its original form; or reuse in an entirely new and creative way.

Creative reuse of resources is a great way to divert materials away from landfill.

***

A few years after RG had opened the doors at West End I was pleased to see how far our reach had stretched when I walked through Myer one Saturday afternoon and saw a display cabinet of watches and the shelves had been covered with little colourful plastic dots, which looked good. I looked closer and recognised the dots as being the offcuts from a company that manufactures plastic washers. The "holes" are punched out of the washers and discarded. Fortunately, they now go into the bin destined for RG, rather than the one destined for landfill. I have some of them in my stock of art materials in my studio, although I haven't decided how to use them yet.

I left RG five years ago and went on to other things and I recently went to the tenth anniversary of the business, still going strong. The current mangement team is doing a great job maintaining the momentum we began.

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