NOT RUBBISH: July 2011

The concept recycling is beginning to mature. In Europe designers have not only taken to the idea, they have embraced it and many have used upcycling to brand their design practices ... click here to visit the DESGNNWS site.

Welcome

If we are to ever get a really dynamic, sustainable, socially relevant and multidimensional resource recovery system anywhere on this planet we must do one thing first. We need to stop imagining our waste as rubbish.

When a city council has a sign over its tip calling it a “Waste Management Centre,” how dumb is that? When a council’s bureaucracy has spent millions of ratepayer’s dollars engineering its waste management infrastructure to the effect that an increasing amount of its waste stream is being consigned to landfill, how dumb is that? When the intention was claimed to be otherwise it is not only dumb but also very lazy.

It seems to have escaped the attention of many Councillors and their bureaucrats that internationally it has been recognised that burying our waste stream is understood as being socially and environmentally delinquent.

A recalcitrant city like the one we describe here is sadly not alone. However, there are many examples of better understandings of what is needed to break the impasse. Lets find them and see what fits regionally and what can be added to the mix.

Towards getting something actually going that challenges the status quo, and that perhaps may be some kind of model for others to take advice from, maybe we need to:
• Identify what it is that needs to be done in the short, medium and longer term to progressively find regional solutions to resource recovery;
• Develop a strategic and marketing plan based on that information and something that fits the local situation;
• Set about developing a community network and/or cooperative that can get on with doing what needs to be done on the ground.

Given that in order to succeed, essentially community participation is a fundamental requirement, and community aspirations need to be responded to, it is possible therefore that there will often need to be some kind of public forum and/or public consultation process to effectively progress regional resource recovery.

It seems that Local government bureaucrats are basically allergic to this kind of thing and claim that it is a very expensive exercise – indeed far too expensive. All too often community consultation processes are tokenistic, self-serving and patronising. This need not be the case.

Let’s have your feedback so that the next steps can be planned for – steps that include you.

Also let us know about good things happening anywhere so that we can all learn from them!

eMAIL: launcestonprojects@bigpond.com

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Thursday, July 28, 2011

UPCYCLING & REUSE AT THE SHARP END

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