Episode 6: In which we consider the nature of value

 Very little of what arrives on site at Kimbriki in cars, utes, trailers and trucks is actually garbage. Most of it – around 70% of it, in fact – is diverted before it reaches the landfill. Garden waste is dumped at the vegetation area and is composted or mulched with the products then sold on-site. Recyclable material is dumped in the designated areas for cardboard and paper, glass and plastic, motor and cooking oil. Wood waste is either salvaged or is chipped and then sold for landscaping. Concrete, tile and brick are crushed for gravel and sand and sold on site. Metal, e-waste and tyres are collected separately and sent off-site for recycling. The tip even occasionally collects whole cars which are used by the emergency services as training for cutting open vehicles in emergency situations.

The landfill is the last line of disposal, but even then, the Buy Back Centre can recycle an incredible amount of waste retrieved from the tip. The interesting thing is that even though someone with a load of waste must drive right past the Buy Back Centre in order to get to the landfill, very few people stop there first to see if what they’re dumping could be sold for reuse. It seems people would prefer to see their pre-loved goods crushed under the massive machinery than put in a yard for others to buy. The landfill staff need to be quick enough to spot reusable materials and pull them out for relocation to the Buy Back Centre before the heavy machinery moves in and crushes them. In the time I spent observing the landfill operations I saw an incredible amount of reusable building materials, including an entire kitchen, various bathroom fittings and an undamaged glass sliding door, bulldozed and crushed simply because the staff didn’t see them in time.

Why did these items go straight to the landfill in the first place?

A couple of hours spent at the Kimbriki Buy Back Centre on a Saturday morning are instructive. The yard is orderly and set out in a logical fashion: furniture, clothing, books and household items in large, lockable shipping containers; windows and doors under cover; other building materials, garden and outdoor equipment in the open. Two women are browsing the shelves in one of the containers. They’ve picked out several items and take them to the yard and get a price from Tim, who’s in charge. He casts an eye over their selections and quotes them $20 for the lot. Very reasonable, I thought. So did the women.

“Great. What about that ramp over there?”

“That’s $15.”

“And the box of tiles in front of it?”

“$5.”

“Fantastic. I’ll bring the car around.”

I asked if she’s a regular customer.

“This is my first time. No, second. I was here a couple of weeks ago but didn’t buy anything. But it’s great.”

“Better than the mall?” I venture.

“Oh, yeah! Even better than the op shop! I’ll be back. I’ll bring my husband next time – he’ll love it.”

I ask Tim if people are generally happy to pay for what has been retrieved from the landfill. To my surprise he says no: mostly they don’t mind, but there are always people who want something for nothing. They don’t see why they should have to pay for something that someone else thought was rubbish. They try to bargain with him and then try to steal extra stuff on top of discount prices.

It comes down to the question of value, both inherent and perceived.

If someone has discarded something at a landfill it is, by definition, valueless. If the former owner handed it to the Buy Back Centre instead of going straight to the landfill, it would be an acknowledgment that the item had value. Just because the former owner deemed it to be valueless, however, does not mean that the item has no value, either in real terms as a useable item that can be bought by someone who wants it, or inherent value in and of itself.

This also brings into question the notion of waste and ownership. If someone throws something out and someone else picks it up and sells it, thereby profiting from the first person’s waste, at what point is the line of ownership perceived to be drawn? At the point of decision to discard the item? At the actual disposal point? At the point of salvage and resale?

Right now the footpaths of the Pittwater area are festooned with piles of household goods and chattels awaiting pick-up by the council in a General Clean-up Collection*. Among the items I have seen on the roadside are furniture, electronic equipment, garden equipment, household appliances, sporting equipment and building materials. All piled neatly awaiting collection and transportation to Kimbriki. No doubt a lot of this material will find itself at the Buy Back Centre, but I wonder how people would react, say, to their neighbours picking over the piles and removing items? At what point does an item cease to have value to its owner and therefore becomes waste, and just who does waste belong to?

The ACT partly addressed this question by having, instead of municipal general collections, Secondhand Sundays**, where householders were encouraged to put unwanted or ‘waste’ items on the footpath with a ‘Secondhand Sunday’ sign clearly designating the items as fair game for anyone who wants them (important that people remembered to put bikes and lawnmowers in the shed before the free-for-all). This, then, is a voluntary exchange between individuals: an owner-giver and a seeker-receiver.

 

Meanwhile, back at Kimbriki, Tim shakes his head sadly and gestures towards the landfill. “They could get so much more out of there to sell here, but people just don’t realise that if they stopped here first, we could take most of their loads for resale.”

I just wonder if that’s what people really want.

*Pittwater Council does two General Clean-up Collections per year.

**The last Secondhand Sunday was in March 2010. It is unclear whether the initiative will be held again.