Recycling Mecca

If anyone is in the market for 1000 Jet Black Absolut brand shot glasses I have the place for you!

Yesterday, we programmed the navigation system for Marrickville and set out for two stores – Reverse Garbage & The Bower.  Both these stores were brand new territory for us to explore and I had no real expectations of what to expect.  Reverse Garbage’s website touted it as a not-for-profit co-operative that sells industrial discards, off-cuts and over-runs to the public for creative and practical uses, reducing the amount of waste going to landfill.   Given my 5 year olds penchant for creativity I thought there had to be something we could find for her craft making box.  The Bower has a similar proposition but focussed on furniture and building products that are generally collected from the surrounding council areas.  They differ from the standard furniture junk collectors in that they have a number of members who restore some of the more unique pieces of furniture for resale.

Our first port of call once we arrived was Reverse Garbage which was marked by a large tank replica constructed entirely of scrap metal offcuts.   Reverse Garbage is housed in a warehouse sized building and overflowing with random products all sorted into bins or piles.  I felt like a kid at a candy shop!  To give you an idea of some of the items …

• the afore mentioned shot glasses – party for 1000 guests
• container full of display phones and chargers, ie not remotely functional – childcare centre?
• piles of fabric offcuts – craft options galore
• a box of black sunglass cases – you just need the glasses and then you could set up an illegal fake designer business
• 100+ blue bottles – perfect for bottling your own olive oil (if you happened to have your own olive oil that is)
• Metal drums – perfect for storing the odd body a la the notorious Sth Australian murders (just joking!  please don’t call the police on me)

My purchases for the day were:

• 3 hessian/coffee bags with some beans still inside (stay tuned for how I will be using these)
• 6 boxes of pencils for my 5 year old
• fabric swatch – no idea what I’m using this for – just looked pretty
• two black plastic squares (stay tuned for how I will be using these as well)

Given the nature of how Reverse Garbage get their products, the contents of the store will be continually evolving which bodes well for a repeat visit to discover anew.

I think next time though I should go with a better idea of what to create as some direction would help as it is all so overwhelming.

What about you?  Have you been to Reverse Garbage or a similar store and what sort of discoveries have you made?

Oh and don’t worry I will be reporting on The Bower shortly, it just deserves a separate post!