Trash ' n ' Treasure

When I was a kid the Trash'n' Treasure stall was always my hands-down favourite at the local school fete.  I never knew what I might find, and it was cheap! the potential was limitless.  As I got older the venue became the op-shop or Vinnies but the principal was the same;  Someone else's trash became my treasure.  These days, with a the typical mix of artist's shame and pride, I admit it may have become the suburban monthly hard rubbish collection.  It is unbelievable what some people throw out with no intention of recycling or giving away to the less fortunate.This week ABC's Future Tense radio program brings us a collection of entrepreneurs who are each using the principal that "rubbish equals opportunity" to build their enterprise, which commonly employs digital technology to facilitate the process.We are now in a period of our history where a rising demand for resources and scarcity of supply is coupled with an over supply of waste.   An economic challenge of today is to re think our relationship to waste so we start to look at it, not as rubbish, but as potential raw materials. Many entrepreneurs are already going down this path.

• Adam Minter - the author of Junkyard planet is  Is an economic realist and reminds us that recycled goods need to compete on the market with the new raw materials.
• Collaborative consumption is closely allied to recycling. Tu Share  was started by James Bradfield Moody for people to swap and trade and give away unwanted goods.
• ReTrash was founded by Nathan Devine.  It is a digital community that supports and promotes recycling and upcycling by showcasing and in turn inspiring creativity and innovation - it is all about reducing landfill by repurposing it into art.
• David Katz is the founder of the ambitious Plastic Bank Initiative. He sees waste plastic a commodity which is pound for pound more expensive than steel.   He wants to set up exchange centres where poor people in developing countries can collect plastic and exchange it for access to 3D printing to create an object that will impact their community in a positive way - eg a container to collect water
• The final story touched on Sweden's Waste Management Organisation is buying landfill from other nations and incinerating it to run their power plants.  Although there are obvious questions associated with emissions the fact is they working constantly on rethinking and improving the current situation rather than continuing on in a 'business as usual' fashion like the Abbot Government in Australia.

I have often thought that a digital platform which allowed artists to share excess materials, expertise, knowledge and even labour would be a great idea;  a platform which on initial consideration combines the basic principals of TuSare, Retrash, FreeCycle and social media (to a limited extent) with an interface somewhat like eBay.