Circular September is proud to present The World's Biggest Garage Sale: an inspiring Circular Economy initiative that is on the move.
The World’s Biggest Garage Sale (WBGS) is a Brisbane-based start-up, designing solutions to commercialise the circular economy through the activation of dormant goods for good. Started in 2013 by social entrepreneurs Yasmin and Leigh Grigaliunas, it began as a charity event – a garage sale – to repurpose dormant (unused or unwanted) goods in the family home and raise money for cancer research.
World’s Biggest Garage Sale is proudly an impact venture (social enterprise), balancing the triple bottom line of people, planet and purpose. While activating the circular economy to provide positive benefit to the environment and people, we are also committed to creating jobs for vulnerable and marginalised members of our community. We are working in the areas of resource recovery of dormant goods (underutilised goods) through to recommerce and resale-retail.
We have partnered with Officeworks (one of Australia's largest retailers) on a Resource Recovery project, diverting more than 20 tonnes of product from landfill in a recent pilot, resulting in Australia's first first Circular Economy Precinct (in Brisbane, Queensland). Via our Precinct, we take dormant goods from the community and businesses and renew, repair and repurpose these underutilised or imperfect products, transforming waste into saleable goods.
We have also led the growth of our Circular Economy Futures monthly meetup, Australia's largest monthly gathering of innovators in this industry (1000+ members). In addition we tried & tested Australia's first circular economy shopping precinct in Brisbane's Wintergarden shopping centre, elevating secondhand shopping to the retail mainstream.
We are now working on further activating Resource Recovery and Product Stewardship within Australia via Federal, State and Local Government initiatives, with plans to scale our centres throughout Queensland and Australia.
Also be sure to check out the September issue of Oxford Magazine to see what WBGS has been up to recently!
