http://johnswheelbarrow.blogspot.com/2006/02/creating-ecologicalworkers-co-op-case.html
Creating an ecological, workers co-op - a case study of 'Reverse
Garbage'
In case anyone hadn’t noticed, our economy is killing the planet. It also commits millions of people to
live in poverty and is creating an ever-widening gap between rich and poor. Some of us think that we
should do something about it.
The failures are systemic and the solutions also need to be systemic. We need fundamental changes in
the way that we think about our relationship with each other and with the earth, and changes in the
fundamental power relations in society. Not only do we need to challenge the existing power structures
(stop inappropriate development, pollution etc), but we also need to build alternatives – alternative
economic systems, alternative political systems, and alternative cultural and social norms.
We already have plenty of technological fixes. The thing that we need to get a whole lot better at is the
political and economic fixes. We need to learn how to work co-operatively, we need to learn how to do
real democracy at a local community level, we need to learn how to create an ecological economy –
now! We can’t wait for experts to teach us what to do. We need to learn by doing. The change that is
required for sustainability is going to be led by local communities. It is going to be messy, we’re going
to experiment, get things wrong, get things right and move on.
This essay is a history of one attempt at starting an ecologically based, worker managed co-operative in
Brisbane, Australia. It is one of many experiments happening all over the world aimed at creating
viable models for ecologically sustainable economic and community development. This is written 6
years after we started Reverse Garbage so we have the benefit of at least a little hindsight – to learn
what worked and what didn’t – what to replicate and what to avoid.
There tends to be a lot of woolly thinking about ‘alternative models’ – which are often promoted well
beyond their capacity to deliver worthwhile results. Part of this problem is excessive self promotion
driven by the need to obtain funding. However, another part is the pervasive sense of hopefulness
whereby people switch off their critical faculties when they encounter nice people trying to do good
things. It is useful to remember that Nice is most usefully thought of as an acronym for “Not Insightful
or Critical Enough” and, if we are going to succeed in replacing the current model of doomsday
economics with something more life affirming and sustainable, we are going to have to subject
alternatives to critical scrutiny.
In that vein, this essay provides a brief (and personal) history of the creation of Reverse Garbage Co-op
in Brisbane. It is partly a history of people, places and goings on, and partly an analysis of ideas and
their practical application.
If Reverse Garbage is the answer, what was the question?
Working with Friends of the Earth Brisbane at the end of 1997, a few of us were asking the following
questions:
q How can we earn a living doing something that makes a positive contribution to the environment and
to our community?
q How can Friends of the Earth develop a secure source of ongoing funding that fits with their vision
and the values and that doesn’t compromise the integrity of the organisation?
q How can we start creating an alternative, sustainable and equitable local economy as a way to help
encourage and inspire broader change?
The idea
We were inspired by the Wombles. It seemed that there had to be opportunities to live off the discards
of our wasteful, industrial society. Whenever you walk past an industrial skip you see valuable
materials destined to be buried in the ground. Our economy systematically destroys ecosystems in
order to create ‘products’, which we then fail to use efficiently and turn into another environmental
problem through landfill. Because this is common practice, it is easy to think of it as normal – which it
isn’t. It is actually insane and grossly inefficient, not to mention morally reprehensible in light of the
flow-on ecological and social consequences.
After travelling around the east coast of Australia looking for interesting models of recycling
businesses that work, there were two obvious options:
- re-use of industrial discards (Reverse Garbage in Sydney and Melbourne)
- tip shops (Hobart, Canberra)
Initial evaluation
It became evident that a tip shop, while possible, was going to take quite a long time to establish in
Brisbane due to the constraints of the waste management infrastructure that was in place. Brisbane has
a system of ‘transfer stations’ where ‘wasted resources’ are delivered and dropped into a pit, crushed
by a bulldozer and loaded into trucks to be transferred to landfill sites outside of town. This is far from
ideal in terms of salvaging useful items for re-use or recycling.
After visiting the Reverse Garbage operations in Sydney and Melbourne, it seemed that there was a
similar opportunity for creative re-use of industrial discards in Brisbane.
Reverse Garbage in Sydney had been started by teachers as a way of providing low cost art materials to
schools. While it had developed a strong environmental ethic, the initial impetus for the organisation
seemed to be more artistic/educational than directly environmental. The business had been running for
over 20 years and had managed to achieve a reasonable level of financial viability despite being
subsidized by local government through the provision of low cost rent for their warehouse and grounds.
A quick analysis of the industrial base of Brisbane compared to Sydney and Melbourne revealed that
Brisbane had a smaller number of large manufacturing organisations but that there was still a
sufficiently large waste stream for us to proceed with some basic market research.
Creating an initial project team
I spoke with a number of other people who I thought may be interested in being part of setting up a
Reverse Garbage operation in Brisbane. Lots of people liked the idea but none who seemed serious
about committing to the project. I asked an old friend from University who had recently quit working
as an engineer and was looking at ways of earning a living in an ethical way. Mitch Semple and I
agreed to start working together on the project.
Shortly after that, and only a few weeks after visiting Reverse Garbage in Sydney, I was contacted by
Lena Tisdall, a Brisbane artist who was keen to start some kind of Reverse Garbage creative re-use
center after being inspired by RG Sydney.
I had an initial meeting with Lena and outlined the plans to date. She had lots of great ideas, a useful
range of skills and networks and was super keen. Lena, Mitch and I started to build a 3 way working
relationship – to clearly articulate our vision and to agree on some principles and processes by which to
work together.
We agreed to conduct some basic market research and then evaluate the viability of the project based
on the results of the research.
Initial funding sources
We opened a bank account and Mitch, Lena and I each put in $50 to cover the initial cost of postage
and phone calls. Mitch and I started investigating the “New Enterprise Incentive Scheme’ (NEIS)
which was designed to provide 12 months income support for unemployed people starting their own
business. We both managed to enroll in some kind of vague pre-NEIS scheme which at least meant that
we could stay on the dole without having to look for work.
Market Research
The viability of Reverse Garbage was going to depend on two factors:
1. a consistent and accessible supply of a wide variety of high quality (valuable) discards;
2. customers who would be willing to buy the materials.
From the visits to Reverse Garbage in Sydney and Melbourne, we had a basic list of the industries from
which they sourced their materials. This coupled with Mitch’s and my background as manufacturing
engineers and our knowledge of the local manufacturing sector gave us a long list of potential
‘suppliers’.
Lena had worked in schools as an artist and provided the outline of a potential customer base including schools, kindergartens, the Rock Eistedford, artists and a number of other potential customer
groups.
We designed a survey to collect key information from potential customers about their interest in a
Reverse Garbage resource center and potential spending. We mailed these surveys to several hundred
schools and managed to get a sufficient number of surveys back to see that there was some real
interest. We did some basic figures on the size of the market (number of schools multiplied by their
average art materials budget multiplied by an estimated % market share) and figured out that it looked
reasonably viable.
On the supply side, we phoned over a hundred companies and asked them if they had anything
potentially useful that they throw out as part of their usual operations. From this we built a list of
potential products and potential suppliers.
Growing the team – stage 1
We reaslised that, due to the relatively low value of the products we were going to be selling, if
Reverse Garbage was going to be financially viable, it was going to have to be a high turnover
business. This meant that it was going to have to be a reasonably large operation – certainly employing
more than 3 people. So we started to think about growing the team.
Peter Maclean (who I had been working with on various different green business proposals) started to
become more involved with Reverse Garbage as Mitch and I began writing the business plan.
Around this time I met John Gower, a professional fundraiser with a long history in retail. I spoke with
him about fundraising for FoE Brisbane and the vision of Reverse Garbage - and to ask for advice. He
somehow became inspired by the RG vision and offered to help with the development of the project.
Dealing with the NEIS scheme
Under normal circumstances, the NEIS scheme involves full time business training for several months,
followed by 12 months of ‘hassle free’ dole money, as well as some mentoring from a business
advisor. From the outset, our attitude towards NEIS was that we didn’t want training but just wanted
access to a hassle free living wage for 12 months so we could get on with setting up the business.
Our initial operations plan told us that we were going to need a total of 8 people to run the organisation
on the scale that we thought was required to be profitable. NEIS had only ever dealt with small
business start ups with a maximum of 3 people – so 8 was just plain weird. They had also never dealt
with a non-profit business before – this was weirder still. And they were insisting that we had to do 3
months business training.
We eventually wore them down. Mitch and I both had business degrees, and John Gower had run multi
million dollar businesses for years – so we convinced them that we knew what we were doing. NEIS
agreed that for every person who had business experience, we could have one other person on the NEIS
programme who didn’t need to do the training. So we managed to get spaces for 6 people on NEIS and
managed to avoid having to sit through months of training.
Growing the team – stage 2
We were meeting weekly in the room above the West End library on Boundary Street. Our office
consisted of a couple of cramped desks with phones in the FoE office out the back of Justice Products,
also on Boundary Street.
We placed a two line ad in the Courier Mail for 3 people to work in a non-profit recycling co-op and
we also put up ads in some of the local greenie hang outs. An initial phone call screened out most
people when they realized that they would have to work full time and only get paid the equivalent of
the dole – and they would have to become a director of a co-operative. We interviewed 5 or 6 people
and ended up inviting three women to become part of the project, including Lisa Owen who at the time
of writing is the longest standing member of Reverse Garbage (6 years and still going strong).
After a few weeks, one of the new recruits was coming to meetings late and it became obvious that
some of the tasks weren’t being done. We didn’t have the time or energy to carry any unproductive
members of the team and she was asked to leave only a month after joining.
Developing the organisational model
By this time, we had a basic business plan down on paper and had written a draft constitution for a cooperative. In developing a structure for the organisation we wanted to achieve a number of things:
1. An organizational model that would reflect our vision for a socially just and environmentally
sustainable world – so that we would practice what we preach.
2. Non-profit status to gain good will with industry to enable us to collect discard materials easily;
3. Constitutional requirement that any surplus (profits) be used to support Friends of the Earth;
4. A legal model that would enable us to enter into the kind of contracts that we would need to enter (ie
long term lease on property);
5. A model whereby decision making rights and responsibilities are balanced (where the people who
are doing the work are the ones that make the decisions about the work);
6. A flat structure where everyone would be paid the same and where there would be a sharing of
conceptual and rote work;
7. A non-hierarchical decision making model that would both require and lead to full creative
participation of everyone involved;
After also looking at the legal frameworks allowed under the Corporations Act and the Incorporated
Associations Act, we decided to register as a Co-operative under the recently revised QLD Cooperatives Act.
The organizational decision making model was roughly based on the consensus model used by Friends
of Earth – although the details of this model were cause for some considerable conflict.
I was proposing a consensus model whereby if consensus is not reached, a majority of 75% could
approve the decision at a subsequent meeting. However, Peter was insisting that we should have a
consensus decision making model without any democratic fallback. I argued that this would allow a
minority (in fact a single individual) to effectively veto any decision and to bring the organisation to a
standstill.
After several weeks of arguing, neither of us was budging an inch. It ended with Peter deciding that he
could no longer be part of the project. Sarah, one of the other new recruits from the Courier Mail ad left
with him. Mitch also left around this point – for personal health reasons.
We finalized the constitution and submitted a draft to the Co-operatives unit at the Office of Fair
Trading. They hated it. We went backwards and forwards arguing over interpretations of the Co-ops
Act. The main difficulties were our lack of Managing Director, and the consensus model. The final
differences were negotiated (with quite a few compromises on our side – which turned out to be
inconsequential) with the help of Anthony Esposito (long term co-op advocate) who effectively
mediated between myself and the co-op unit.
Reverse Garbage Co-op Ltd. was officially registered in November 1998, almost a year after the idea
was first developed.
Growing the team – stage 3
After Peter and Sarah left, we started to look for a couple of replacements. Lisa had met a local artist
who worked with recycled materials and who was interested in getting involved with Reverse Garbage.
Her and Lena had a meeting with him to check out his work and to talk to him about his ideas. Timo
Mehlem was invited to meet the rest of the team and shortly afterwards was asked if he wanted to be
part of the soon to be formed Reverse Garbage Co-operative.
Around this time, I had been starting to do some theoretical work on sustainability and resource
efficiency and through this had begun working with Brenton Fletcher who was soon to finish his PHD
in Chemical Engineering, researching conceptual models of sustainability in plastics recycling. Brenton
was keen to get involved in something practical and we still needed one more person. After another
informal interview in our meeting room above the West End library, Brenton was invited to join the
team.
We still needed one more person – preferably someone very practical to help with maintenance and
building projects, and running the truck. Robbie Lea, a friend who I had known from forest blockades,
was in town and at a loose end. After coming along to an informal interview at one of our weekly
meetings we invited him to be part of the team.
Fundraising
From the outset we took a very broad view of fundraising. We were very clear about defining our
requirements. Do we need money or do we need a particular thing? In some cases (insurance, licences,
fees) we were very clearly going to need money. In other cases we reaslised that it would probably be
easier to find somebody to donate the particular thing that we needed than to raise the money.
The budget in the business plan made the assumption that no wages would be paid for the first 12
months of operation. The only wages would be from the NEIS payments – a living wage.
The other start up costs were estimated at around $33,000. This was a very very tight budget that
assumed that many of our core operational tools would be donated (desks, computers etc.). We started
looking for our core infrastructure and for sources of funds.
The infrastructure side was relatively easy. We soon had a phone system, computers, all the office
furniture we could dream of, a pallet jack (freshly refurbished by the firm that donated it) and a
donation of 150 wheelie bins from the plastics company that made them. We worked all of our
personal networks very hard – and we made brilliant and inspired sales pitches.
The money side was more difficult. We approached ethical investment organisations for grants or nointerest loans. We approached the Brisbane City Council and the State Government. We spoke with
private philanthropists. We got nothing. Without a track record, nobody was willing to invest.
After lengthy deliberation we applied for a $15,000 grant from the Gaming Machine Community
Benefit Fund with which to purchase a truck and lifting equipment. The Grant came through and we
were able to purchase our core operating asset. (Note: We refused to apply to the Jupiters Casino Fund
as this was seen as a PR fund for the gambling industry. The prevailing argument about the The
Gaming Machine Community Benefit Fund was that it is really a form of tax on gambling that
effectively goes into consolidated revenue of the State Government.)
So we had $15,000 but still needed another $18,000. The remaining funds were cobbled together with
loans from the members of the co-op. We had no other option and decided that a personal commitment
of $2000 each would help us to sharpen our focus and our commitment. Some of us had to borrow
money from friends or relatives, but in the end we had loans from six of the members, plus an extra
loan of $6000 from me. We had a total of $33,000 in the bank.
Finding a property
Finding a property proved to be a much more difficult task. John Gower and I spent countless hours
driving around the suburbs of Brisbane. In many ways this is where a lot of the real planning for the
business took place – arguing and debating different ideas, solving problems and brainstorming while
we drove around looking at properties. We decided to aim high and asked the local council to give us a
large inner city property for a peppercorn rent. They refused. We kept looking for months all over
Brisbane – from the inner city to the outer lying industrial areas.
One day Timo called and said he had been to a clearance sale at a local West End commercial property
that he thought would be ideal. We went and checked it out – it was perfect. We contacted the owners
and John Gower started the negotiations. We wanted a 3+3+3 lease to give us the security we needed.
They were insisting on directors guarantees for the loan. Only Lena and John owned their houses – the
combined assets of the rest of us amounted to a few bicycles, musical instruments and a few tools – so
directors guarantees were not going to work because it would mean some directors would bear far more
responsibility (and risk) than others. John did a brilliant job. If it wasn’t for his steadfast confidence
and brilliant negotiation skills we probably would never have got the lease. We ended up with a 3+3+3
lease, with no directors guarantees, and three months rent free from the date we opened the doors.
Meanwhile I started talking to some local town planners to make sure that we could get the necessary
council approval for the project. John Panaretos from Urban Strategies donated considerable time to
help us negotiate the maze of council regulations. To be prudent we decided that it would be best to
invite Tim Quinn (who was then a local Councilor and head of the Council Planning Committee) down
to the warehouse to explain the project.
An operational plan
So we had the concept, the legal structure, the money and the property. The next thing we needed was
an operational plan and an organisational process to make it all happen.
We adoped an organisation model developed by Stafford Beer – a British management theorist and
systems thinker. He had developed the ‘Viable Systems Model’ (VSM) based on observations about
how the human body (and in fact any living system) functions. He identified the key requirements of
viability in any system and had put this into concepts for organisations.
The organizational functioning of Reverse Garbage was developed to reflect this model. We had board
meetings and we had operational meetings. We identified the key operational areas (resource
acquisition, warehouse operations, sales, PR, admin and finance, legal) and allocated responsibility for
each area to different people. We each wrote our own job descriptions (both for the start up phase and
then ongoing) as well as individual work plans which were then agreed by the group.
We made sure that there was a reasonably sharing of jobs. Everyone was on the roster to clean the
toilet at least once each week, and everyone had to do some stints in sales and sorting. By the same
token, everyone had some sort of conceptual work as part of their job description. (Michael Albert in
his work on Participatory Economics calls this concept “balanced job complexes” - see
www.parecon.org ).
We moved into the property in mid January and we set a launch date for the end of March. We had two
and half months to deck out the warehouse and collect enough stock for it to be worthwhile opening.
The work plan was written into a gannt chart that was kept on the wall in the office so that we could all
track our progress in the lead up to the opening.
We bought the truck the same week that we moved into the warehouse. The first thing we had to do
was clean the warehouse out. There were piles of junk from the previous occupants – some of which
was useful to us as future products, some of which was sent to landfill. We had to remove dust
extraction equipment, scrub floors, design and build a material handling system, move walls, build
shop counters…
I was living in a share house at the time. Every day I would leave for work before anyone else had
woken up, and I would get home after they were all in bed. I think I must have worked about 16 hours
a day every day for six months. So did everybody else.
Friends of the Earth decided to move into the house next door. We negotiated a deal with the owners
whereby we would have 18 months rent free in return for refurbishing the inside of the building. So
while Reverse Garbage was getting ready to start business, a wonderful team of activists were turning
their hand to renovating what was soon to become the new FoE Brisbane office.
The birth of a new economy – our first income
The previous occupant of 296 Montague Road was an electric lighting company. They had left behind
mountains of partially cut and folded sheet metal. Some of this was useful to us, but most of it was
destined for recycling. Timo, Robbie, Brenton and I spent two days sorting through the piles and
loading the truck with scrap steel in preparation for what was going to be our first trip to the recycling
depot - and our first ever income.
Brenton and I tied down the load and headed off to the SimsMetal yard in Rocklea. We drove through
the weighbridge and out into the scrap yard. It took about half an hour to throw the steel off the truck.
It was a stinking hot January day – we were dripping sweat, filthy and feeling proud. We had all been
working our arses off and today would be the start of a new economy – redefining waste as a valuable
resource! We drove through the weighbridge on the way out and Brenton went in to collect our fee.
We’d been guessing how much it might be - $50? $200?
Brenton came back looking puzzled. “How much did we get?” I asked. “Three forty” he said. “Three
hundred and forty bucks!” I thought to myself, “Whoopiee!”
Brenton clarified, “Ummmm…well actually it was three dollars and forty cents.” I couldn’t belive it.
“No way – you’ve got to be kidding – they must have got it wrong. Go back and check.” So Brenton
went back in – only to confirm that our two days work had earned us a massive $3.40. It is hard to
convey the sense of outrage that we felt. It was starting to dawn on us why there were so few recycling
businesses.
We stopped at the drive through bottleshop on the way back to the warehouse and asked for two light
beers. “That’ll be $3.40” said the attendant. “Of course,” I said, somehow managing to enjoy the irony.
When we got back to the warehouse we had to tell the others. “Sorry guys but we pissed our first
income up against the wall”.
Opening the doors and winning awards
After three months of work we opened our doors with a singing, dancing performance that managed to
get state wide TV coverage and launched Reverse Garbage successfully into the world. It was
incredible to see the amount of support that we received from the local community. Materials poured
in, artists offered their services, volunteers were knocking at our door, newspapers and radio stations
agreed to cover our story.
During the opening months, Judy Gower joined the Reverse Garbage team, as did Sandy McBride who
started to develop our environmental education programmes. Before our first year was out, we were
awarded the “New Small Business of the Year” award by Quest Newspapers. It was a wonderful
validation from the ‘mainstream’ after months of tireless work. John Gower summed it up well when
he said, “We didn’t know that it would be impossible, so we just got on and did it.”
After 12 months the NEIS programme ended and the business was earning enough to replace this living
wage – and actually increase it slightly. We developed a budgeting model whereby our annual budget
was divided by 52 to give a weekly budget. Any weekly income that was over this budget level was
divided up and paid out as wages. This meant that our wages fluctuated anywhere from $6 per hour up
to $15 per hour. It was direct and immediate feedback on our performance and ensured that we were all
focused on the business of becoming financially viable. Other cash flow fluctuations were managed
with a buffer of about $5,000 left over from the start up. Gradually our wages increased over time –
edging ever closer to the holy grail of a consistent $15 per hour wage.
A lingering question of equity
When planning the business we realized that, during the start up phase we would not be able to afford
to pay people a wage that reflected either the value of their work or the sacrifice they would make.
However, we believed that the business would be successful and that, after several years,
employees/members of Reverse Garbage would be earning a reasonable living. This created an obvious
disequity. The people who had the initiative and drive to start the business would not be financially
compensated/rewarded, while people who walked into the business after several years would be paid
well from day one.
In order to solve this problem, we devised a model of deferred payment, whereby a portion of unpaid
wages were accrued as a debt that could be claimed against Reverse Garbage at some future date. We
realised that this debt could not be instantly recallable, otherwise Reverse Garbage would technically
be insolvent and the directors would have a fiduciary duty to close the business. The deferred wages
system that we arrived at basically involves the formal acknowledgement of the unpaid wages, along
with contracts with each of the involved people that outline the terms of repayment. Put simply, if
Reverse Garbage does not have the money to repay these wages then it will not be forced to jeopardise
it’s ongoing viability to do so. However, if the surplus is there, the back wages debts must be repaid.
Alternatively, the back-wages may be able to be claimed in materials instead of cash although this
raises practical difficulties in relation to income tax.
This system created an enormous headache with our auditors – and was at least in part responsible for a
less than amicable end to our relationship with them. On the otherhand, putting these debts on the
public record means that Reverse Garbage is publicly and legally committed to honoring them and
ensuring that the principles of equity, which are so clearly written in it’s constitution, are upheld.
In order for equity to prevail, the sacrifice and benefits accrued by the founding members need to be
placed in the context of the sacrifice and benefits being accrued by the current generation of co-op
members – according to the general guide of ensuring no undue privilege and no undue penalty.
Key lessons learnt
Don’t undercapitalise
The real cost of starting up Reverse Garbage wasn’t $33,000. It was $33,000 plus $110,000 in unpaid
wages, plus countless hours of volunteer effort, plus the goodwill of the local community. Even
$143,000 is ridiculously cheap for a business that employs 6 people in a self-managed work
environment doing something that is benefiting the environment and the local community. It works out
to be somewhere around $25,000 per job – for good quality jobs that people feel proud to do. It would
be cheap at ten times the price.
Compare this to all of the talk of ‘sustainable job creation’ by the big end of town. When government
agencies talk about job creation, they talk about schemes involving millions of dollars – where the cost
per job is in the realm of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Reverse Garbage in Brisbane has proved that, if done properly, resource recovery can be a very cost
effective way of creating employment. The challenge is to attract sufficient start up funding so that the
founders don’t all burn out from over work/under pay and thereby jeopardise the viability of the
business.
In retrospect, we needed at least $200,000 to start Reverse Garbage. If we had access to this kind of
capital, the organisation would still be paying it off, but would probably have had a much smoother
start up – with less staff turnover.
High staff turnover has been debilitating for the organisation and made the start up process much more
stressful than it would otherwise have been. The lack of start up capital and the corresponding low,
unpredictable wages also meant that people with kids and mortgages were selected against – in
preference for younger people with no dependents/commitments (and perhaps less useful experience).
A recurring theme in environmentally focused organisations and co-ops is that staff tend to be
overqualified (ie. University graduates or activists with a philosophical commitment to the ideals of the
organisation). However, hiring overqualified workers can be just as big a problem as hiring
underqualified workers. Small organisations simply cannot afford the high costs of continually having
to recruit and train new people so it is important to find people that are well suited to the work (as well
as having a commitment to the values/ideals of the organisation) and that will stick around for the long
term.
Adequate capitalisation would also have meant that a lot of time and headaches would have been saved
in terms of setting up the backwages system – which has turned out to be quite a problem, not only for
the tax office and the auditors but also for subsequent generations of directors who are faced with a
balance sheet in which liabilities (although not current) far outweigh assets.
Skills deficit and external directors
Reverse Garbage was an experiment in quite a radical model of worker self-management. In order to
be on the board of RG you need to work in the organisation. And if you work there you are required to
become a director and to accept legal responsibility for the whole organisation. This is a significant
departure from the standard model of having external boards – which might usually have one staff
representative at most. It has the advantage that the people who are actually doing the work have
control over their work. However it has the disadvantage that without outside input it can become very
self referential.
Reverse Garbage faces the reality of all small businesses – too much work and not enough time or
money. Organisations of that size generally cannot afford to pay people to sit around pondering the
future. It also faces the reality of all progressive organisations that are struggling to survive in a
capitalist economy – with relentless pressure to compromise values and principles in the face of
perceived economic necessity.
With a pretty lean operation, it can be difficult to bring people into the organisation that have the skills
that are required to run a $300,000 a year business and that also are keen to do hands on work, clean
the toilets, and serve customers, and who share the values of co-operation and environmental
sustainability. The common solution to this problem is to put all of the conceptual work into one job
description and to employ a manager (usually on a higher pay scale than everyone else) that
monopolises all of the interesting work while everybody else does the slightly less challenging but no
less important work of running the actual business. However, this undermines real workplace
democracy.
Training
In order to maintain a system of balanced job complexes and to bring necessary skills and experience
into the organisation, there are a couple of other mechanisms that can be used. One is to invest
seriously in training – so that all staff are given a real opportunity to develop the skills required to
manage and to govern the organisation. This is expensive, but it needs to be done for a workermanaged model to survive. In order for people to participate meaningfully and constructively in the
governance of any business (or any organisation with significant financial turnover), they need to
understand financial management, and they need a basic understanding of their legal responsibilities.
In order to participate effectively in an egalitarian, worker managed co-operative, people also need to
have a good understanding of decision making processes, group dynamics and must have a good
understanding of the ideas, values and principles that underpin the organisation and it’s mission. This
doesn’t happen by accident – it requires clear training and rigorous induction processes if it is to be
done well.
External directors
Another mechanism, which can complement good training is to introduce a limited number of external
directors on the board. These directors could rotate from year to year depending on what skills are
required – and can provide a much needed external perspective. The presence of external directors does
not necessarily threaten the integrity of the worker management model so long as their number is not
sufficient to veto decisions.
Prioritise and focus
Looking back, I realise that we were insane. At one point, a little more than 12 months after starting the
business, I was investigating setting up an environmental printing business, a second hand clothes
shop, a bicycle recycling business, a printer cartridge recycling business, doing a feasibility study into
solvent recycling, setting up an eco-efficiency consulting branch of Reverse Garbage, and doing a
paper recycling research project for the Brisbane City Council. And the rest of the members of Reverse
Garbage let me get away with it.
The lesson is simple - you need to keep your main thing your main thing. Decide on the priorities and
then focus on them. Set SMART objectives (Strategic, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, Time
bound) and stick to them. Prioritise and focus.
Accountability
There can often be a clash of cultures between grassroots environmental activists and business people.
In part it is due to different values, but also different cultures. Many business people appreciate the
need to radically reduce our environmental impact, just as many activists appreciate the need for
economic activity in order to generate livelihoods for people.
This clash of cultures and values has played out repeatedly within Reverse Garbage and at times led to
debilitating interpersonal conflicts that were not dealt with constructively. I’ll discuss only one aspect
of this clash – around the issue of accountability.
If an organisation is going to be effective and efficient, there needs to be a high degree of
accountability of the people involved. Roles need to be clearly defined and people need to be
accountable for their performance. Organisations have rules/procedures for good reasons and for these
to work effectively there needs to be some level of accountability against these rules/procedures.
In Reverse Garbage, we wanted to walk the line between clear accountability and having a nurturing,
respectful working environment. We were trying to operate with a non-hierarchical organisational
model while also acknowledging vastly different levels of experience, skills and probably most
importantly, confidence.
A recurring discussion that we had during the first year was around the old saying “No socialism
without discipline”. Putting it another way - you need to have discipline before you can have freedom.
The contrasting view is most eloquently articulated by Mikhail Bakunin: “Freedom is the precondition
for acquiring the maturity for freedom, not a gift to be granted when such maturity is achieved.”
By getting bogged down in philosophical discussions, and by focusing on differences in
cultures/workstyles, we failed to develop an effective model of accountability that was clear and
timely. This isn’t to say that we didn’t have any accountability mechanisms at all, far from it, but
problems/issues often became politicised rather than being dealt with as operational issues, which they
often were. There were real political issues too, but these were generally resolved easily and amicably.
A dynamic that often exists in community organisations (as well as many other organisations) is what
is sometimes called a ‘culture of applause’, whereby everyone is always wanting to be nice to each
other and to pat each other on the back even if the thing in question is of dubious standard. Sure, it is
great to be nice to each other, but this doesn’t need to come at the expense of having real accountability
mechanisms – otherwise ‘nice’ become an acronym for “Not Insightful or Critical Enough’.
There have been a number of major interpersonal conflicts since the start of Reverse Garbage. These
conflicts have generally not been managed in a clear, direct and timely way – leading to significant
acrimony. A more robust culture of accountability would probably have helped us to deal with these
conflicts better and would have forced issues to be resolved rather than being swept under the rug and
allowed to grow.
So is it a viable model?
Today, Reverse Garbage is a reasonably healthy organisation that employs 5-6 people full time and
turns over around $300,000 per year. It diverts around 2 tonnes of re-useable materials away from
Brisbane landfills each year and it makes these available at low cost to the local community. It also
exposes thousands of people each year to the idea that ‘Waste is something we DO, not something that
IS’.
Reverse Garbage has achieved a lot but is still far from reaching it’s full potential as a catalyst for
change towards a more sustainable society.
It has shown that you don’t need government funding to set up viable re-use businesses. It has also
shown that you don’t need a manager to operate viable co-operative businesses. There are some
processes that Reverse Garbage have developed that could well be used by other organisations to good
effect. There are other processes and practices that should probably never be replicated.
Hopefully this case study has allowed readers to understand how Reverse Garbage was established,
what worked and what didn’t. Ideally it will catalyse discussion and debate, and provide some useful
food for thought for others who are considering establishing environmentally focused organisations
that also wish to embody workplace democracy and worker self-management.
-----------Since 1998, Reverse Garbage Co-op has been diverting re-useable materials away from landfills and
making them available at low cost to the local community. It has an annual turnover of around
$300,000 per annum, employs 5-6 people, and is financially self- sustaining. It operates as a not-forprofit worker managed co-operative with a flat organisational structure. It was started with total capital
input of just $33,000.
John Hepburn was the initiator and co-founder of Reverse Garbage Co-op Ltd. He was involved from
the initial concept development in January 1998 until he resigned as a member in March 2002. This is a
personal reflection which may not represent the views of others involved in Reverse Garbage either
now or during it’s start up phase.
For more information about Reverse Garbage, visit www.reversegarbage.com.au
Posted by John Hepburn at 11:44 PM