From waste to worth
Whether it’s rescuing perfectly good items from the tip face or repairing sentimental things and bringing owners to (happy) tears, Tasmania’s tip shops and repair cafes are doing wonderful things to avoid sending more to landfill. Sarah Aitken celebrates some of our best.
Tasmanian tip shops are veritable treasure troves to which people travel far and wide for a good rummage, finding everything from clothes to bikes to the literal kitchen sink at a fraction of the price of a new item.
Everything you need already exists
Greg Beeston, Recycle Centre and Resale Shop Manager at Uptipity – aka the Launceston tip shop – queries why anyone would buy new when he sees such terrific stuff come into the tip daily.
“Whatever they need, there’s a good chance we’ve got it,” he says. “We’ve got a whole shop of stuff that you would have inside your home, but then outside we’d have anything that you might use outside your home. We’ve had boats, we’ve had caravans, we’ve had trailers. Entire workshops of tools, paint, bikes, building materials, everything. It just makes really good sense because the cost of putting product in the ground is astronomical.”
When asked how often he might buy these goodies himself, Greg chuckles and says: “Don’t get my wife started on me!” It turns out Greg has managed to fill his substantial garden with items from the tip shop, creating various themed areas. There’s a marine theme, a farmyard theme and a clockwork theme.
“My pièce de résistance is my Chernobyl theme. So I’ve got augers, I’ve got all this stuff, and we’ve joined it up so it looks like a blown-up factory and I’ve got the garden growing through it, so it’s like nature’s taking over again.”
More than just a shop
In the north-west, Elisha Harrison is at the helm of Smithton’s The Circular Head Resale Shop and sees it as a community hub. A lot of her time is spent connecting struggling community members with basics, including food.
“We’ve had people in desperate need when they come in, even people whose houses have burnt down and they had nothing. In that case I just helped them out – if they’re in such dire need I just open the store up to them and say, ‘What do you need?’
“I have the food bank here too – anyone in food stress can just come in and help themselves to whatever they need. The food-stress situation in Circular Head is quite dire, and coming into winter, the housing crisis is quite dire too, there is a lot of deep need up here. There are a lot of people who really, really need the assistance; then there might be about a third of our customers who are just shopping for fun.”
Tasmania paved the way
It’s no wonder our tip shops are so tip top – the idea was born here. Back in 1993, Brad Mashman founded the Glenorchy tip shop. He and his team then set up the tip shops in South Hobart, Mornington and Ulverstone before the idea quickly went national. “Basically all of the tip shops across Australia are based on our model,” he explains. And he’s still here, as Managing Director of the Glenorchy Recovery Circular Hub. He’s also a Churchill Fellow and United Nations 2030 Agenda Leader, continuing to fight the war on waste.
“With tip shops, it’s your opportunity to make a decision about your carbon emissions,” he says. “If you buy second-hand, there’s no carbon emission. If you buy new, you increase carbon. The science is very clear, and now it’s important for people to start thinking about their purchasing habits. Anything you bring into the state increases carbon.”
Repair, don't despair
If you’ve got something special or useful that is out of action because it needs a repair but you lack the skills to do that, a repair cafe can help in the loveliest of ways. Tasmania has a growing number of repair cafes, where skilled volunteers help the less-skilled of us fix anything from torn clothes to vacuum cleaners and even childhood music boxes.
Happy tears
Arthur has always been handy and made a career out of building and fixing speakers. Now he volunteers at three Hobart repair cafes: in Newtown, Warrane and Dodges Ferry. He’s been volunteering for about five years and gets as much out of it as the people who come in looking for help.
“Once I repaired a little old musical toy that rotates around, like a merry-go-round. A few pieces were broken off, so I patched it all up and fired it up again, and it worked. It was the first time she’d heard it for about 30 years. She was very pleased. There were tears.”
He remembers another woman, in her nineties, who turned up with a very sentimental mug. “Unfortunately, she’d managed to knock over a wedding present, which she’d had for 50 years, and her husband had passed away 10 or 15 years ago, and the article was an Arthur Boyd mug. She’d knocked it over on the mantle when she was dusting. I managed to fix it up, and she was so happy about it. That was lovely.”
Good for the soul
Further south at the Kingston Neighbourhood House, Samara Jenkins runs the Kingston Repair Cafe, where 30 to 40 items are repaired at a time.
“Being at the Repair Cafe is my favourite time, "Samara says with a smile. “The people are so beautiful. We have a great afternoon. We ring a bell when something’s repaired, and everyone cheers. And the people who aren’t getting things done, we’re just sitting around having a coffee and talking about what we could do to save the world and all that kind of stuff. And it’s just a beautiful place to be.
“Sentimental items are the most popular. But once people know what we do, then they realise that they can repair other things. That’s the plan – to show people that you don’t have to throw things out, you can just repair them.”
Fixing community connection
In the north, Rachel Koch facilitates the Launceston Repair Cafe. Some days there are happy tears, and there are always laughs.
“We had a young man come in with a pair of shorts that had just split while he was out. He ducked into the toilets and passed them out through the door, and we mended them and gave them back to him – which I just thought was incredible,” she says with a laugh.
People come to the cafe for all sorts of reasons. “Some of it is environmental, but some of it is their parents’ or their grandparents’ thing that they’re fixing up to pass on to their kids. Or someone who used to mend things for themselves, but now they’ve got arthritis so they can’t. And the stories of the volunteers too, and why they’re there, I just love seeing how interconnected we all are.
“At the heart of it, it’s about slowing down. It’s about consuming less. It’s about replacing our things with our connections with people. For me, that community connection comes back to an environmental benefit as well.”
Tassies best Tip Shops and Repair Cafes
Recovery Circular Hub, Glenorchy - Tassie’s first tip shop; some say it’s the original and the best. Don’t miss the embedded fine arts trail discussing carbon emissions, the history of waste and how we can reduce our carbon footprint.
Huonville Reuse Shop - Huonville Farm supplies, antiques and country-style furniture.
Eastside Repair Cafe - 2-4pm one Saturday per month at Warrane Mornington Neighbourhood Centre.
Dodges Ferry Pop Up Repair Cafe - Run by the Eastside Repair Cafe at Okines Community House.
Kingston Repair Cafe - 2-4pm on a Sunday every two months at the Kingston Neighbourhood House.
Launceston Repair Cafe - 1-4pm on the third Saturday of the month at the Pilgrim Uniting Church.
Uptipity, Launceston - Big items like camper parts and trailers, as well as all the usual tip shop things.
Repair Cafe Hobart - 1-4pm on the third Saturday of each month at Kickstart Arts in New Town.
The Circular Head Resale Shop, Smithton - For all sorts of building supplies, furniture, antiques, bric-a-brac and community support including food parcels for those in need. Find them here.
Devonport Repair Cafe - Operates at the Devonport Farmers Market, 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month.
Resource Work Cooperative, South Hobart - Great for bikes, wood, outdoor gear and kids’ clothes, plus a beautifully curated vintage section. Excellent compost made on site and free items in the trolleys out the front. Find them here.