(From rubbish to rebirth – an interactive PSW meeting)
Our president (Greg) came up with this idea while driving around and looking at the things sitting on the side of the road, and imagining other uses for them, asking the question “what is that article a solution to?” He and his wife (Vera) went on to develop the idea into a concept for an interactive PSW meeting night, ran it past the committee, and we put it into practice shortly afterward.
It's amazing what you can find by the roadside!
This is how we did it.
Setting up the Meeting
Normally the meeting room for PSW meetings is set up such that there are rows of chairs facing the front of the room where the speaker, projector and screen are located, with tables around the perimeter of the room for things like the ‘Recycle Roundabout’, library, Seed Savers and Crop Swap. For this meeting the hall was set up with the tables placed diagonally on each side of the hall in a herringbone pattern, with 6 to 8 attendees per table. This design was used so that the attendees could sit around the table on both sides but still be able to look forward towards the speaker and screen.
Standard meeting setup
Herringbone setup
To run the meeting a series of objects rescued from being sent to landfill were required, and while Greg and Vera had about ten items for use at the meeting, they needed more. They sent out a request prior to the meeting for the committee members to bring along whatever items they could that had been discarded and were ready to go to landfill. These could then be used by the groups to develop ideas for how they could be repurposed. Once the tables were set up, the collected items were divided up amongst the four tables. Such items included: an axle and wheels from an old shredder, PVC pipe, a piece from a steel pool fence, section of steel downpipe, pieces of the PVC coated polyester tautliner from a semi-trailer, pipes and liner of a small above ground pool and a padded baby onesie (turned into oven mitts)
More bounty on the side of the road!
Starting out
The meeting was started with the usual format with the month in review including acknowledgement of country, mission statement and events, but also included a video – “War on Waste – Recap” which was a summary of the ABC TVs ‘War on Waste’ Series by Craig Reucassel. This was then followed up by an introduction to what the meeting was about and how the activity would unfold. It included the video “The Story of Stuff – Solutions” to give people some ideas and a PowerPoint presentation on the format of the night by Greg.
Running the Meeting
The idea was that one of the items present on each table would be selected by the participants on that table. A spokesperson would also be nominated on each table to record their ideas on butcher’s paper and then report back to the room on what their item was and ideas on how it might be repurposed. The participants would then discuss how the item could be used/repurposed for a period of roughly ten minutes. At the end of that time a bell was rung and reports from each table’s spokesperson were given to the room on what ideas they had come up with to repurpose the item.
Once every table had had a chance to report the ideas for their first item, they chose a second item for repurposing, different to the first in material, size or texture and then proceeded to discuss their ideas on how it may also be repurposed, the ideas written down and then reported back to the group once discussion time had elapsed.
The result was a remarkably diverse and creative set of ideas on how items that were originally destined for landfill could be put back into service in some form, quite differently from their original purpose. As a result some people took their items back to re-use, they were inspired and enthused enough to want to take the item home and put it back into use.
The Wrap Up
Once the main activity was completed, the group was addressed by Greg, asking the attendees to consider what they could take away from the nights activities and what they had learned. Attendees gave each other round of applause.
PSW Recycle Roundabout table
This led into the idea of what we as a group could do next, that is go to the recycle roundabout table (where members bring in materials to be repurposed or reused) and take something that they could reuse that they might not have done previously.
The final item was a five-minute video entitled ‘The Big Sort’ which gave a tour of the inside view of a recycling plant.
