About us
Why Reverse Garbage
Most of us have seen bins and skips full of materials that are too good to throw out .... timber, wire, fabrics, vinyl, out-moded stock. Companies are paying to dump these valuable resources when there are thousands of people who could use them.
Industrial and commercial offcuts, over-runs, left-overs, outdated stock and seconds that are sent to landfill can be re-used by schools, artists, craftspeople, home handy people and the general community. Re-use opportunities are limited only by imagination.
Reverse Garbage collects industrial discards and sells them at low cost to the Brisbane community. We operate a large retail warehouse at 296 Montague Road, West End, in Brisbane. We collect a truckload of materials every weekday, so there's always something new in the warehouse.
Who we are
Reverse Garbage is a not-for-profit workers' co-operative. We believe that the people who do the work should be the ones making the decisions. Therefore, our workers are the directors of the co-operative. We use a consensus decision-making model.
Currently the Directors of Reverse Garbage are Bill Ennals, Lyn Graham, Louise Gillard, Julie Hauritz, Derek Peden and Bronwyn Field.
Reverse Garbage was initiated to support Friends of the Earth - Brisbane, although both remain separate, independent organisations. We donate any surplus funds to Friends of the Earth for their environmental education work.
What we do
We collect all sorts of materials which we sell from our West End warehouse or by mail order. If you're doing a project around the house and need some odds and ends or if you're an artist or a teacher looking for materials, you'll probably find what you're looking for at Reverse Garbage.
We collect industrial discards from more than 300 businesses and industries around Brisbane, such as printers, plastics manufacturers, pillow-makers, upholsterers, theatre groups and government departments. We collect any clean materials currently going to landfill that could be re-used in the community. Offcuts, over-runs, outdated stock and packaging materials all have re-use potential limited only by imagination.
We house Echoes Giftshop which showcases the work of local artists who use salvaged materials.
We also run junk art and sustainability workshops in schools and at festivals as well as hosting school excursions to our warehouse.
For more information about Reverse Garbage, please call us on (07) 3844 9744, email info@reversegarbage.com.au or drop in to the warehouse at 296 Montague Road West End, Brisbane. We are open Monday to Saturday, 9am to 5pm.