How to guide

Secondary

> Swap It
Share, trade or swap instead of shop and de-clutter your life

Action

Australians spend an average of $59 per week on household equipment and $44 on new clothes, making us one of the top consumer nations. Most of the stuff we buy eventually ends up being thrown away and as our population continues to grow this is becoming a bigger and bigger problem.

Switching our habits from shopping to swapping or buying second-hand goods can make a huge difference to the amount of waste we create. Making the switch also has a positive impact on the environment (and our wallets) because it saves:

  • Items from ending up in landfill and taking up valuable space
  • Energy and resources needed to dispose of the items
  • Energy and resources used to create new items
  • Money, because there is no need to buy new things!

How To Do It

Choose one of the actions below or come up with another idea to promote sharing and swapping as an alternative to shopping:

  • Develop an online database where the school community can donate/share/trade/swap items they no longer want or need
  • Organise a swap party with your friends or class to encourage swapping of old clothes, books, DVD’s and CD’s rather than throwing them away
  • Organise a ‘de-clutter’ day with your friends to go through your room and wardrobe, then host a market during recess/lunch to help find the de-cluttered items a new home and save them from going in the bin
  • Hold a fashion parade at your school to promote op-shopping/buying second-hand clothes

Quick tip: Donate any unclaimed/unsold goods to a local charity store.  

Spread the word about what you are doing and why by taking photos of you and your friends in action and sharing or posting them on social media!

What’s Our Impact?

Keep track of all the items you have swapped/traded. What volume of waste did you save from going to landfill by finding it a new home (e.g. how many wheelie bins or backpacks full?)

CALCULATE YOUR IMPACT

Fast Facts

Approximately 50% of hard waste that is taken to the dump could have been recovered or is still in good working condition.

The average Australian spends $59 per week on household equipment and $44 dollars on new clothes.

On average Australians spend $9.5 billion a year on gadgets versus $5.1 billion a year on fashion.

The average Australian household throws away 17.7 kilos of waste every week.