The ABC TV show War on Waste featured a “community worm farm hub” run by a woman named Hannah Churton, which covers a street in the Brisbane area. This accepts organic waste from households in the street, and in return they are supplied with worm fertiliser that is very beneficial for plants.
Economy and shared resources
For a parallel economy, complementary currencies localise spending, and involve a sense of community ownership that is absent from the homogenous dollar economy. In countries such as the UK, USA and Germany, communities have produced their own unique currency notes, but unhelpfully, this is illegal in both Australia and New Zealand.
Digital currencies are an alternative but are expensively high-tech. LETS (standing for “local exchange trading system”) is a “mutual credit” community trading system using local currency units, and Timebanking is similar to LETS, but focuses on services and with all participants’ time valued equally. Barter is simple, but restrictive, because both participants need to have something to offer one another.
Another approach involves getting out of the capitalist mindset and embracing the gift economy, which today largely exists in the form of online platforms and apps such as Freecycle, Freegle, Olio and Buy Nothing groups on Facebook. Offline, there are free shops and Really Really Free Markets dotted around. A free shop can be a fridge, locker or cupboard along a footpath, with the permission of nearby shops and residences.
A culture that puts less of an emphasis on individual ownership requires mutual trust. The primary concern would be theft, but in a close-knit setting this is far less likely. Useful shared resources include pushbikes, seeds, tools and books on practical topics.
Tool libraries are an excellent idea, based on the fact that the average tool is used only occasionally. Borrowing one makes far more sense than everyone owning one’s own, and has obvious environmental benefits.
Repair it
During the COVID era, supply chain difficulties made items more difficult to obtain, and similar issues could occur in the future. Therefore it makes extra sense to learn how to keep items going for longer. Over the past few decades in affluent countries, much of the population has become deskilled, and these skills need to be kept alive rather than delegated to experts.
A good place to have an item repaired, or to learn repair skills, is a Repair Café, a weekly or monthly workshop where people bring items to be fixed for a financial donation. At the latest count, there were 66 of these running in Australia and 21 in New Zealand.
Overcoming normalcy bias
Many people share a difficulty in distinguishing in real time between a temporary setback and an ongoing, and perhaps worsening, state of crisis. It is only in hindsight that the difference between the two becomes clear. Normalcy bias is a tendency to underestimate the likelihood or impact of a disaster, instead working on the basis that life will likely continue as normal.
Issues such as the rental crisis are pressuring the community to take some action, given that government adherence to the free market in housing is failing to resolve this problem. Community land trusts and co-housing developments can both help. Where governments are trying to balance competing interests, communities are not constrained, and can find local and grassroots ways to look after their own needs more autonomously.
Article featured in WellBeing 208
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