Re-purposing second-hand electronic goods and reducing textile waste

It’s likely almost every home in Victoria has either donated items to, or bought clothes from, a Salvos store.

The Salvation Army has been operating its second-hand stores for over a century. Environment and Sustainability Manager Martin Nordstrom says, 'As a charitable reuse retailer, we’ve been working as a part of the circular economy for over 140 years. It is great to see the circular economy coming into popularity and see the rest of the world catching up with us.'

The Salvation Army’s mission is to ‘care for creation’ by helping to change attitudes around waste and using the planet’s resources. As Martin says, 'This planet has been gifted to us to maintain and repair. We work collaboratively with other groups to build strong connections, sell items with high material use, and provide socially driven support. We recruit volunteers who find it hard to gain employment. In the end, we’re building personal, economic and environmental value in society.'

The organisation has expanded its electronic test and tag services to increase access to second-hand electronic goods. But the new processes bring fresh challenges to minimising work health and safety risks, including test and tag skills and appropriate storage. As a result, not all stores can sell used electrics as working items.

Martin says, 'Instead, many electrical items can still be sold for ‘non-electrical use’ – as an aesthetic item. For example, old transistor radios and lamps. This works within legislation. We also consider market segmentation. If there is a really cool collector’s item, we’ll sell it on eBay to maximise return.'

As a well-known and long-established organisation, the Salvation Army understands its own ability to influence change. Martin says, 'We have a continuous-improvement model, and our whole management is engaged in solving the problems of waste. In South Australia, we have a modified truck that turns waste into energy. We have our own internal e-learning process that provides open access to learning and behaviour change.'

However, the Salvos Stores also face many of the same challenges as smaller and newer circular economy initiatives. Martin says, 'The scale of work required is enormous. We have a big impact, but there is always more to be done. Resourcing and community understanding of the value of second-hand are critical to our journey.'

The organisation knows that in the end it’s up to consumers to reduce textile waste. Martin says, 'Our stores are all about behaviour change. Reuse is up to 30 times more effective at avoiding CO₂ emissions, so let’s boost reuse in the minds of our global citizens.'

Driving circular economy at a local scale

Sustainability Victoria provides local communities across the state with the tools and knowledge they need to participate in the shift to a circular and more sustainable way of living.

Over the past decade, Sustainability Victoria has supported 137 community groups to deliver sustainability impacts in their local communities including tool libraries, repair cafes, composting hubs and food sharing initiatives. This project was funded through one such initiative, the Circular Economy Communties Fund.

Read our community circular economy initiative guides.