I recently overheard someone say she’d thrown some shorts in the bin. There was nothing wrong with the shorts. After she’d worn them a couple of times, she got sick of them, so she simply chucked them out.
I nearly had a conniption when I heard this and it took a lot of willpower not to go full Karen on this stranger. It’s hard to believe, that in 2022, the general waste bin is still the first resort for people’s unwanted clothes. Had the shorts been re-worn, upcycled or donated, they would’ve been given a long and prosperous life. Instead, their life was wasted from being treated as general waste, and they were added to the 260,000 tonnes of textile waste that reaches Australian landfill each year.
November 7-13 is National Recycling Week (NRW). Launched by Planet Ark in 1996, it aims to improve Australians’ recycling knowledge and build better recycling habits so they treat landfill as the last resort. This year’s theme “waste isn’t waste until its wasted” encourages people to think about waste as a resource, rather than as garbage. It’s all about keeping valuable materials out of landfill and reducing the need for buying new by giving items that are already in circulation a longer (or second) life. It also teaches people about the cool things that are made from recyclable materials. You might already know that recycled cardboard and paper can be made into toilet paper, but did you know that plastic bottles can become activewear, that cans can become rain gutters, or that glass bottles and jars can be made into road base?
We’ve come a long way from the small black recycling tubs of the nineties. These days, recycling “The Five” (paper, cardboard, cans, plastic and glass) is made easy thanks to the trusty yellow bin that’s a permanent fixture in every Aussie household, school and workplace. Now, with the Containers for Change program offering 10c for every eligible container, you can even make money from recycling. There really is no excuse to throw your recyclables in the general waste bin. But what do you do with things like unwanted clothes, toys, knick-knacks and other household items? Well, you donate them, of course!
Op shops like Good Sammy’s are a great place for your preloved goods to begin their second life, but they must be in good condition. Charities can’t fix broken things or wash clothes, so it’s important that donated items are clean and not broken or stained. As a rule, if it isn’t good enough to give to a friend, then it isn’t good enough to donate. I mean, would your friend really want that skanky old T-shirt with the weird stain on it, or that daggy chipped mug that’s been collecting dust for years?
It's true that Good Sammy accepts donations any time – even after hours – but only if they’re put inside their yellow donation collection points and not dumped outside stores. This is to prevent theft, litter and weather damage. Some dumped items end up being sent to landfill because they’re unsellable – and Good Sammy is about keeping things out of landfill.
Janelle Osenton is Good Sammy’s Resource Recovery Coordinator. Janelle’s job involves finding alternative solutions for unsellable items like plastics, metals, and electronic waste. She’s helped set up a number of recycling partnerships with local businesses and enterprises that support the circular economy by putting recycled material back into local and interstate manufacturing. These include a ragging partnership with Para-Quad and supplying reusable coffee mugs to Our Kinds. Other recycling partners include Claw Environmental, Total Green Recycling, AAA Metals and Remondis.
Janelle also seeks out partner organisations to assist with repairing, upcycling or reusing low selling items.
“Working at Good Sammy is a fascinating insight into the things that people value”, she says.
“We can find new homes for most items, but there are some we can’t sell enough. In our warehouse storage we have a lot of partial crockery sets and high quality soft and hard toys. We also have a lot of electronic goods, books, CDs and DVDs now that people are using online streaming services.”
Janelle would love to see more people buy second hand toys, books, games and kitchenware rather than buying new items.
Last year, Good Sammy received a whopping 6,000 tonnes of preloved goods. Over 75% of these goods were sold, saving 4,500 tonnes from landfill. Ideally, they’d love to resell 100% of their donations. After all, the costs they currently incur from sending unsellable goods to landfill or diverting waste to minimise landfill, take vital funds away from the very people their organisation supports: West Australians living with disability.
So please, keep donating those things that no longer spark joy (like those shorts) but remember that their quality and condition is important. Click here to see a list of items Good Sammy can and can’t accept.
Donating your preloved items to an op shop is a great way to give them a second life and contribute to the circular economy. Next time you drop your preloved clothes at a Good Sammy store, why not have a browse too? Buying second hand, instead of new, saves water, energy and raw materials because it doesn’t rely on clothing production. And trust me, there’s more than enough second-hand clothes in existence for everyone to build an entire wardrobe if they wanted to. Recent data has shown that Australians buy an average of 27kg of new clothes every year and only keep 4kg of it.
You could also bag, tag and drop off your containers at an authorised Good Sammy refund point. There are now 23 authorised refund points across WA - a mix of bag drop and cash drive-thru sites. Western Australians can bring eligible containers to any of these sites for a 10-cent refund. Do you know what that means? You’ll help keep valuable resources out of landfill, create jobs for people living with disability and have extra cash to spend on preloved gems in Good Sammy stores. You can also donate what you receive from cashing in your containers directly to Good Sammy to support them in their mission!
So, if you want to be a GREAT sort and live by the mantra that “waste isn’t waste until it’s wasted”, you can start by donating and shopping at your nearest Good Sammy. There’s no better time than National Recycling Week. The planet and your wallet will thank you for it.
