The Garage Sale Trail: all over Australia one huge day of garage sales 5 May '12

Hat tip to Sustainable Melbourne

From The Garage Sale Trail: Thousands of garage sales all over Australia on one huge day – Saturday 5th May 2012

The Garage Sale Trail is about sustainability, community & creativity. It’s a organisational framework that enables the peer-to-peer exchange of assets, resources and money on a hyper local level but with national scale. Garage Sale Trail is a platform for anyone who wants to make some money or raise money for a cause and for anyone who wants to connect with their community. That’s makers & creators, local business, households, cultural institutions, charities and community groups.

In brief, the Garage Sale Trail is about making sustainability both fun & social and using the Internet to get people off the Internet:

• The Garage Sale Trail is a program that enables the peer-to-peer exchange of assets, resources and money on a hyper local level but with national scale. It happens all over Australia on one day, Saturday May 5th 2012
• The Garage Sale Trail is about sustainability, creativity, community and micro-enterprise
• The Garage Sale Trail is a platform for anyone who wants to make some money or raise money for a cause and for anyone who wants to connect with their community.
• The Garage Sale Trail is for makers & creators, local business, households, cultural institutions, charities and community groups
• The Garage Sale Trail a perfect way to discover treasure, de-clutter, have fun, make money, make a positive contribution and make neighbourhood connections
• You can get involved by registering your sale online, shopping on the day – May 5th 2012 and/or donate to the Garage Sale Trail Foundation

FOR SELLERS:

• If you are a household the Garage Sale Trail is the perfect way to de-clutter & make a little pocket money
• If you are a maker or creator, use the Garage Sale Trail as an opportunity to market your wares to an audience who want to discover treasure
•  If you are a local business it’s an opportunity to connect to your neighbourhood and make positive contribution to your community
• If you’re a community group or cultural institution the Garage Sale Trail is the perfect way to fundraise and / or connecting to your local community

FOR BUYERS:

• Garage Sale Trail is the perfect way to discover treasure
• Garage Sale Trail is the biggest community-based marketplace
• The Garage Sale Trail is the best way to find a bargain

Use your mobile on the day to find Garage Sales near you: www.truelocal.com.au

Register your garage sale or plan your trail by visiting garagesaletrail.com.au

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The Garage Sale Trail website also has some good tips on holding a garage sale, keeping your sale green, and haggling for a purchase! – [JB]

Gold from garbage - some seem to be getting it right

Picture from here

Article from  here

Environment: Getting Gold From Garbage – 

How Some Are Making Waste A Resource

Source: European Commission
Published Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - 10:36

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Top performing Member States have recycling rates of up to 70 % and bury virtually nothing, whilst others still landfill more than three-quarters of their waste. How have the best performers turned waste from a problem into a resource? A new report from the European Commission today explains that it is by combining economic instruments. A mix of landfilling and incineration taxes and bans, producer responsibility schemes and pay-as-you-throw prove to be the most effective tools in shifting waste streams to more sustainable paths.. If the EU is to meet the objectives set out in the Resource Efficiency Roadmap – zero landfilling, maximising recycling and reuse, and limiting energy recovery to non recyclable waste – these economic instruments will need to be introduced more widely across all Member States.

Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik said: "Waste is too valuable to just throw away, and if you manage it right you can put that value back into the economy. Six Member States now combine virtually zero landfilling and high recycling rates. Not only do they exploit the value of the waste, they have created thriving industries and many jobs in the process. This report shows how they achieved it: by making prevention, reuse and recycling more economically attractive through a selection of economic instruments. We now have a common responsibility with the Member States and local authorities to ensure that these instruments are effectively used and spread across the EU. This is one of the central goals of the Resource Efficiency Roadmap."

Experience in the Member States shows that a combination of the following instruments is the best way to improve waste management:

Landfill and incineration taxes and/or bans – the results of the study are unequivocal: landfilling and incineration rates have decreased in countries where bans or taxes have driven up costs for landfilling and incineration.

"Pay-as-you-throw" schemes have proved very efficient in preventing waste generation and encouraging citizens to participate in separate waste collection.

Producer responsibility schemes have allowed several Member States to gather and redistribute the funds necessary to improve separate collection and recycling. But cost-efficiency and transparency vary greatly between Member States and between waste streams, so these schemes need careful planning and monitoring.

Significant differences between Member States

There are significant differences in waste management between Member States. According to a Report published by Eurostat on 27 March (see STAT/12/48), the most advanced six Member States - Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Sweden and The Netherlands - landfill less than 3 % of their municipal waste. At the other extreme, 9 Member States are still landfilling more than 75 % of their municipal waste. Recent statistics published by Eurostat show continuous progress in some new Member States, where recycling rates are increasing rapidly. Municipal waste generation has also decreased in several Member States probably due to the economic downturn.

Economic Instruments needed to reach EU objectives

Replicating these instruments in all Member States will be necessary if the EU is to meet the targets set out in its waste legislation and its targets for resource efficiency. This is why the possibility of making their use legally binding in some cases will be assessed in a 2014 review of EU waste targets. The Commission is also including sound waste management in conditions for receiving certain European funds (see IP/11/1159 and MEMO/11/663).

Waste is good business

Meanwhile the Commission is encouraging Member States to implement existing waste legislation more effectively. Waste management and recycling industries in the EU had a turnover of € 145 billion in 2008, representing around 2 million jobs. Full compliance with EU waste policy could create an additional extra 400 000 jobs within the EU and an extra annual turnover of € 42 billion (see IP/12/18). Improved waste management would contribute to achieving several objectives and targets of the Europe 2020 Strategy for smart sustainable and inclusive growth.

More information

The report and detailed results for each Member State:

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/use.htm

ESTAT Report on municipal waste management:

STAT/12/48

Study on macroeconomic modelling of sustainable development and the links between the economy and the environment:

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/enveco/studies_modelling/index.htm#macro

Handling the garbage down Mexico way

Mexico City is twice the size of Melbourne. And it is having problem with its garbage.  The powers that be have recently closed one of the world's largest landfills.  This has brought about illegal dumping of garbage - by the garbage collectors themselves!

Now rubbish is no respecter of persons: the poor, the rich, the intellectuals, and the dumb-bums all make waste and have garbage to dispose of so rubbish is being dumped in some of the posher suburbs of MC.

And it is not only Mexico City that is having problems.  Bogota (with a population 2.5 times the size of Melbourne) and Buenos Aires (half the size of Melbourne) are having problems.  Read more about this here.

To find out what is happening on the continent of South America, please look at the document below. 

Recycling and Trucks

You might like to pop over to Thomas Hayden's blog, The Last Word on Nothing, and read his post which is titled Trash, Recycling, and the Heartbreaking Lessons of YouTube Ethnography.  And for those of you who are keen on garbage/rubbish trucks you might like to pop over here.

Interconnectedness and new life in a country garden

Two of the great lessons of the universe are interconnectedness with other humans, other species, and the planet itself; and care for each other, the species around us, and the planet that sustains us.  Waste, neglect, and thoughtlessness work against these universal themes.

The story of Mrs Gray's Garden is a simple one. It's basic appeal is one of interconnection in an Australian regional city, Wodonga - which, with its Twin City, Albury, straddles the Victorian-New South Wales Border and the mighty Murray River.  It shows how resources lying dormant, neglected or wasted can be reclaimed and put into service.  Mrs Gray's Garden, it is hoped, will become just one of many which will thoughtfully establish interconnectedness and contribute to the needs and the well-being of the communities in which they are situated. 

The problematic poser: who should pay for e-waste disposal

THE ARTICLE BELOW IS FROM SMART PLANET

Who should pay for e-waste disposal?

By Vanessa Ko | December 7, 2011, 2:22 AM PST

1Comments

more +

HONG KONG — Hong Kong will soon have a facility designated for dismantling and recycling electronic products such as televisions, refrigerators and computers.

A tax will be added to the price tags of electronic products to help pay for e-waste disposal. Based on a similar tax in other cities, the cost of home appliances is expected to go up by $12 to $30.

The question now is whether consumers should pay for all of the recycling costs. Some argue that retailers and manufacturers should pay for part of it to hold accountable all involved parties.

The current proposal places the recycling fee at the retail level, and it is likely that retailers will simply charge the extra cost to consumers. This type of legislation “is not really the spirit of producer responsibility” as intended by the legislation, said Edwin Lau, general affairs director of Friends of the Earth in Hong Kong.

Lau said in over 30 jurisdictions around the world, the e-waste fee is charged to the importer, as electronic products are frequently manufactured overseas.

“Of course producers have the responsibility to contribute a small part of their earning to the annual operation cost of the e-waste recycling plant that will have our e-waste properly dismantled and recycled and reused,” Lau said.

In California, there is a $10 fee added to the price of electronic products with viewable screens, but retailers may choose to pay the fee on behalf of the consumer to make its prices more competitive. Several other U.S. states charge e-waste recycling fees to manufacturers.

Right now, about 80% of Hong Kong’s e-waste is exported to other cities and countries. Many of these areas are poor and use polluting processes that are harmful to the workers’ health. “It’s not environmentally responsible,” Lau said, “and it’s not ethical.”

Photo: Vanessa Ko

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About Vanessa Ko

Vanessa Ko is a Hong Kong correspondent for SmartPlanet.

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Contamination: of lives, and of regulatory and tax systems

Picture from The Age story

Case study one, believed to be Leigh Street, was particularly concerning.

''Twenty-two residential properties surrounding the former quarry site are contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [by-products of fuel burning], benzo(a)pyrene [a carcinogen found in coal tar and exhaust fumes], lead and other metals due to the quarry infill material,'' the report found.

The report said that the ''Maribyrnong City Council and the EPA have demonstrated poor due diligence and a poor duty of care'' to the residents at the site.

The report outlined a tangled bureaucratic mess for dealing with contaminated sites.

''No one entity is accountable for oversight of the effectiveness of the regulatory framework in operation.

''Further, responsibility for managing the high-risk sites has been neither clearly defined nor accepted by any entity,'' Mr Pearson found.

He called for a ''systematic and co-ordinated review of the entire regulatory framework''.

The Environment Protection Authority said it accepted the report's recommendations in full.

Maribyrnong City Council chief executive Vince Haining said within the 32 square kilometres of the municipality there were 89 former quarry sites that contain residential and industrial waste.

He said council did not ''possess the financial means'' to immediately investigate and remediate potentially contaminated sites across the municipally.

He said the council was working closely with the EPA and environmental consultants to investigate and remediate sites mentioned in the Auditor-General's report.

~~~~~

I want to draw attention to four facts:

•  that this pollution, contamination, call it what you will is from waste, by-products of a form of resource extraction and production.  
• that the cost of cleaning up this site and the cost of healthcare for those affected by this contamination will be borne by the ratepayers of the Maribyrnong City Council and the taxpayers of Victoria through the Victorian Government.  
• that there is unlikely to have been any realistic cost extracted by either the Maribyrnong City Council or the Victorian Government from the business using the site to cover such contingencies
• that there was insufficient regulation and/or monitoring to prevent this and there is no direct indication that effective regulation and/or monitoring is already in place or will be put in place to prevent such an occurrence again.

People gain prestige when they rise to elected office at whatever level of government.  People who manage government instrumentalities are well-educated and, again, acquire prestige from their appointments.  The people who have lived in these properties either suffer from afflictions obtained through the contamination or live in fear of adverse health states further down the track.  

What I am pointing out is that some people are all glory and frequently abdicate their responsibilities.  Some people are casualties and some are tax fodder.  Our society has to come to the stage where adverse affects and costs are effectively recognised and accounted for in an up-front manner.  The burden is falling adversely on people who should not be paying the price while the damages, wasters, incurrers are getting away, it would appear, scot free.