Opened nearly five years ago, the Bower is a community co-operative and a registered charity, managed by a member elected board. It employs eight local staff part time. Work opportunity is also provided for volunteers from Green Reserve, Work for The Dole and for those under Community Service Orders to make a contribution back to the community. Bower members have the potential to access a 20% discount off goods, to sell their own refurbished items in the 'Consignment' area, and use the well-equipped workshop.

Bower staff member sorting goods for sale

The Bower engages in a host of different strategies to divert solid waste from landfill. For example, prop buyers looking for quirky items for their stage and film sets can hire Bower stock. As many people who live in the Inner City area (bounded by the 13 councils that the Bower services) do not own large vehicles, the co-operatives' truck can deliver their purchases. Where some unwanted products are available in large quantities, the Bower staff find innovative ways to create new products from these materials: coffee tables made from old bike parts, lamps from computer circuit boards or light shades from Venetian blinds.

Housed in a volunteer built, straw-bale constructed retail shop, The Bower sells ‘stuff’. Stuff that one person did not need, but now may be useful to another. The co-operative ‘mines’ the alluvial deposits of the household waste, before it gets buried again. Council kerbside clean-ups are trawled to find working or near-to-working household artefacts. Customers can arrange pick-ups from their premises or make direct donations.

Given its limited size and staffing resources, the Bower is selective about what it can accept, but the breadth of goods offered is staggering. Slide projectors, dentists chairs, ladders, indigenous artefact carvings, matchbox cars, roofing iron, fluffy toys, soviet era wood planes, chisels, doors, windows, sinks, basins, sinks, spiral staircases, sewing machines, suitcases, dressers, vases, light fixtures, computers, VCRs, movie props, clothes dryers, steel lockers, baths, carpets, silverware, tupperware, crockery, roof insulation, bicycles, hip flasks, stereos, saw horses, pneumatic drills, dining tables and chairs, pool fences, tap fittings, door furniture, nuts, bolts, washers, hinges, switches, speakers, wardrobes, juicers, tents, golf clubs, photocopiers ...

The fact that the Bower can offer all these goods reflects the poor state of our community relations. We know little about our neighbours, except what car they drive because it is parked out front and what beer they drink because we can see inside their recycling bin. In our densely populated urban environments we simply don’t know anyone who might want our old toaster or lounge suite or art deco vase. So to make room for the newer version we might have a garage sale or advertise. But if these options bear no fruit, disposal to landfill becomes the answer. Not knowing our neighbours also means we all fill our houses with identical products, duplicating the quantity of goods. How many of us have a neighbour who pops over to use our washing machine? The same neighbour, who might then loan us their fruit juicer. Alas it is more likely that 20 houses in a row will each have a lawn mower that gets just a 30-minute workout once a week.

Fashions change too. Pink ceramic toilets are no longer in vogue. Carpets are out and floorboards are in (or are carpets making a comeback? Who can keep track?) Who wants a tape player when CDs are the go? A VCR when the kids demand DVD? Who needs a perfectly good computer with a 500MB hard drive when retail stores sell new 6GB models and you don’t need to pay for another two years?

Ray and Mike re-glueing a chair

So society has product ‘churn’. Out with the old, in with the new. The old needs to go somewhere. A tiny portion of it comes to roost at the Bower. A fire-twirling baton might take months to find another home, while a very cute bedside table might only spend an hour in the store, before it begins its new life. What The Bower provides is a halfway house between one existence for a product and its next life cycle. Some products even cycle through the place on a regular basis, like sofas and wardrobes going to a succession of student share-houses. It also has a section set aside for pieces placed ‘on consignment’ by members, who are artists and craftspeople. They have lovingly brought goods back to life or conjured new items from old materials.

But the Bower is a re-use centre, not a recycling facility. Products or at least the materials they are made of are re-used in their original condition. They are not melted, chipped, shredded, pulped into tiny pieces and reprocessed. A metal stool is reused as a stool, not melted down to become a tin can or roof truss. A bookcase goes off to be a bookcase, instead of being chipped for garden mulch. The longer materials can be maintained in their original state, the less energy is needed to find to reprocess them via recycling. Re-use is so much more energy efficient and environmentally responsible than recycling.

With the assistance of a Community Waste Grant, managed by the NSW EPA, the staff at the Bower are bringing disparate materials together. Saucepan pot racks have been fashioned from bicycle wheels with the spokes acting as the hooks. Light stands use the strength of snow skis standing in a pre-loved motorbike helmet. Fridges have been converted into self-contained worm farms. Ex-army circuit boards shed a gentle diffuse light when formed into bedside lamps. Trestle legs have been made of salvaged structural timbers inside lounges. Venetian blinds are reincarnated as light shades when threaded onto old wire coat hangers. Thrown away bike frames now form the chassis of a robust bicycle trailer. Louvre shutters combine to create a smart ‘flat-pack’ corner shelving unit.

The Bower team have scoured far and wide for concepts they can develop to give used materials a second useful life. And fortunately Australians are known for their creativity with odd materials. Witness the legendary Coolgardie safe made from kerosene tins or the mini band-saw crafted from a sewing machine that was donated to the Bower. The team at the Bower would be delighted to hear from anyone happy to share their adventures in re-use and re-manufacture.

(This article was edited with the kind permission of the authors, Warren McLaren and Lucy Rowe, Co-ordinators, The Bower Reuse & Repair Centre Co-operative. The original story previously appeared in the Alternative Technology Association's magazine 'Renew'.)