Last month we celebrated Earth month and day, the theme for 2021 was “Restore Our Earth.” It focuses on natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking that can restore the world’s ecosystems. In this way, the theme rejects the notion that mitigation or adaptation are the only ways to address climate change. It is up to each and every one of us to Restore Our Earth not just because we care about the natural world, but because we live on it. We all need a healthy Earth to support our jobs, livelihoods, health & survival, and happiness. A healthy planet is not an option — it is a necessity.
At World’s Biggest Garage sale we strive to focus on using natural processes, and innovative ways we can restore and reuse the resources we already have.
There are a few ways in which we do this at WBGS.
Upcycling
Textile waste can take over 200 years to decompose in landfill contributing to harmful greenhouse gases that accelerate climate change, Additionally, textile production has huge environmental consequences and uses up precious finite resources – the more we can keep current textile resources in circulation the better it is for the environment by lessening demand for new textiles.
Resource Recovery
In Australia, on average each household disposes of around 24kg of wooden furniture per year – approximately a third of this are soft furnishings like sofas and armchairs, and two-thirds other wooden furniture.
In Australia we dispose of over 20 million tonnes of waste through landfill every year. Office furniture accounts for a large percentage of landfill by volume. Just under half of all commercial waste finds it’s way to landfill. This is a scary figure, considering roughly 90% of commercial waste and around 97% of office waste can be reused and / or recycled.
At WBGS we are now resource recovering wooden pallets and transforming them into furniture and giving them a whole new life.
Reuse
Each year, 90 billion tonnes of primary materials are extracted and used globally, with only 9% recycled.
We are constantly reusing here at the World’s Biggest Garage Sale, our entire office fit out was secondhand including all desks and chairs. If we are not reusing a product we are selling them to our customers to ensure that they find a new home and do not end up in landfill.
Reloving & Renewing
Research shows using products for as little as 20% longer can help get them to carbon neutrality.
We are always looking for ways we can re-love items, this may include sorting throughout donated clothes items and finding vintage and retro gems that have come back into fashion or simply fixing a broken zip.
We also renew old office chairs that mechanically work perfectly but just look a bit run down, we have a team who reupholster these chairs to bring them back to life.
