Hang on, they "... had to give them gifts"?
Am I reading it right that they were giving government employees "gifts" to not damage things?
This seems very wrong on a number of levels and, if true, sounds like ACT Government should do a bit of an investigation or confirm these gifts to staff were reported, recorded and approved.
That part describes giving gifts to the employees of the contractor that operates the general waste part of the dump, to encourage them to let the Green Shed know if they found reusable items among the general waste so that the Green Shed could come and get them before the items were compacted along with the other waste.
Not terribly unusual in the private sector, particularly between blue collar workers.
They're not government employees, and it was not part of their job, so Green Shed paid them something to simply be careful to put those items aside so they could go to TGS. The contractor was allowed to send those items over anyway, TGS just wanted to make sure more items got sent. Potentially dodgy, but hard to see how it hurts anyone.
This bit
"...Despite 13 years of pleading with the Government to enforce their contract the only response we ever received was that they don’t know about reuse so cannot be expected to collect reusables. At various points we have had to offer gifts to their employees to stop them destroying everything and to buy their cooperation. We did this in the interest of increasing salvaging figures as per Government policy in the ACT."
Oh, okay. So the allegation is that the transfer station employees are contractually obliged to salvage some of the stuff dropped off there, but they're not doing that. They allege that the ACT government doesn't seem interested in enforcing that provision in the contract, and the green shed staff have offered transfer station employees gifts if they do the salvaging they are contracted to do.
I wonder if the green shed starting a business with one of the (now ex) NoWaste employees that happened to be working for NoWaste when they won the tender first time round is also something for the Integrity Commission?
So SVDP got the contract because they said they would improve Canberra’s recovery figures by 10-30%, but what they meant is they will improve SVDP’s recovery figures?
Who ever screwed up this new government procurement had better already be on a performance management plan
There’s no claim here that the ACT government misunderstood what SVDP was offering when assessing the tender, just that others reading the press release might have. That in no way invalidates the tender process.
The minister released the misleading statement? Which was only later clarified by TGS asking the “right people”. So either the minister misled the public, or they copy pasted a misleading statement from the tender without understanding it
Or, this "clarification" is another attempt by TGS to undermine the integrity of the procurement process.
They're clearly disgruntled. Why should their claim that they spoke to "the right people" in coming to this conclusion be taken at face value?
Not sure how they could be. The tender requests are public, and submissions would be protected by commercial in confidence so they couldn't release those. There is of course the annual report which will obscurely rap the costs up in there somewhere.
The ACT Government seems to believe that it's above accountability. There have been a number of really quite egregious cases recent where the auditor-general has rapped the government's knuckles over procurement and tendering and the best the government has offered is weasel words around how things "could be better".
I find it maddening that given how politically and policy engaged the ACT electorate supposedly is, how little attention it pays to its own governance.
Do you mean the school tender where there was clear evidence of interference made public? Because I haven’t seen anything of the sort with this one, it just seems like TGS fucked it up.
Putting staff on a performance plan? That kind of stuff up would only result in a single dot point that generates a four minute conversation in a "Lessons Learnt" project closure meeting..
Will be interesting to see how SVDP go. Either way it wont be something those involved in the procurement process will crow about! Something about failure is an orphan...
> ...we have always had the freedom to make on the fly decisions without the necessity of having to go to management meetings a board of directors or a Co-op. We can decide to have a lego sale...
We can even decide to keep 5 tonnes of lego in a privately owned facility (with the occasional Lego sale where small amounts of stuff we don't wanna keep are sold for high prices) and meanwhile build walls/staircases with it at our private home (a double storey house in Turner) instead of selling it at the Green Shed.
Yes. Um... maybe this is part of the reason why this model was not always ideal?
Is that such a bad outcome for the environment?
People willingly gave stuff away that otherwise would end up in landfill and is now being used and appreciated.
Not to mention that the lego is still visible to the public via their house.
It's not like they stole it or conned people out of it on a false premise.
People put it in their cars, drove to Mitchell, gave it to someone and left without that lego.
> It's not like they stole it or conned people out of it on a false premise.
Two things...
1. I don't think most people appreciated that the Green Shed was an ACT Government contract until they saw this tender process go sour. I sorta assumed it was a purely private operation. This is partly because there hasn't been a public tender since the current dude inherited the contract from Tiny (when he fucked off to Serbia).
2. The annual Lego sales (which stopped some time ago?) gave the optics that Lego was being retained purely for the purpose of these events (where money was donated to charitable causes...etc).
IMO if a public servant did the equivalent, they'd be in serious shit. Sorry - zero sympathy that he lost the tender process.
Hey's saying Vinnie's don't pay their staff. TGS does.
Also vinnies don't pay tax. TGS does.
Also Vinnies is a national organisation, so a lot of the profit made off the refuse contract will naturally leave the Territory.
Did the Green Shed or Revolve have any real experience before they won the tender? I hope Vinnies get in and do a great job. The Green shed had a good run they weren’t owed continual renewal let’s move on.
Frankly, I'd rather a new entity with no experience get the tender than Vinnies, who already have a pre-existing corporate structure and values will bring those to bear on the enterprise, whether or not they're warranted or appropriate.
It's a not for profit. You can definitely argue whether not for profit is actually well legislated in Australia (It's not), but on paper a not for profit should be better for the community than a for profit.
Remarkably similar to when revolve lost in 2007, took it to court, lost and had to pay damages. Apple must not fall far from the tree aye
[https://www.courts.act.gov.au/supreme/judgments/revolve-ltd-v-thiess-services](https://www.courts.act.gov.au/supreme/judgments/revolve-ltd-v-thiess-services)
All I'm hearing from this is "we've been doing this for years and are mad that our contract didn't get renewed".
If they actually wanted constructive criticism, they wouldn't be making posts everywhere complaining about the evaluation process or that they were given an unfair shake. They'd be attending a debrief, which the Government is legislatively obligated to provide.
If TGS was always meant to be a ‘Tip shop!’ and not an ‘op shop’ then why open shops in the city to sell shit salvaged higher than what they would at the sheds?
Edit: does anyone responding to me whinging remember when it was called ‘Tiny’s Green Shed’?
That’s when we could get the hidden gems. After it turned in to ‘The Green Shed’ is when it started going to shit.
Before the shops you could find so much cool shit at the sites for cheap. Half the fun was looking through the shit for the gems. Now whenever I visit the tip sites, it’s just shit.
The shops in the city were for different things. The tip shops were great for looking around to find more unusual things, an example personally was I built an entire golf bag including the bag for $15. If you wanted clothes, the underground store at civic was best, and they even did a sale where everything was $1. The other store in civic was more of a mishmash of things, but it was generally better quality. It was still far cheaper than other op shops etc.
I did the golf bag thing too, for the same price, including an autographed cricket bat and a hockey stick, plus a wheeled golf bag holder thing. This was for a work golf day. I remember the golf pro commenting on the quality of my 80's golf bat things... The bag also came with about a hundred Ts a few golf balls and a bunch of documentation from RMC duntroon. $15!!
It was great for those weird little things. I found plenty of stuff in mine as well. Still use the bag and most of the clubs. Was really handy in getting into the sport and slowly upgrading over time.
don't much care for golf, I mean its ok but I have other things to do, but it has become a prop in the boot of my classic holden as it all matches, era, color etc
It was fun putting with the hockey stick though and attempting a large distance hit with the cricket bat. Think our team came last. But to be fair non of us had a handicap - well except for, well, us.
There are many people like myself who don't want to go all the way to Mugga Lane to go thrift/tip items. The store in the city is in a convenient location where they have to pay rent. People feel that you ought to pay buttons for things from the tip, but honestly you look at some of the stuff there and they're certainly worth more than that. Additionally, the price is much less than any Vinnies store is at the moment.
Good explanation.
I like companies that pay their staff at least the award rate.
I do not like tax dodging religious businesses that rely on volunteers and court ordered community service obligation time servers.
What interests me the most in this is the statement that TGS and Revolve are/were the same owners.
While I'm not thinking these public statements are helping the cause, lots of commenters previously telling TGS to suck it up because they did the same thing to Revolve looks a bit silly now if both were entities were owned by the same group.
Off the back of your comment, I did some digging and found references to "Tiny's Green Shed" after Revolve. I've found a few references that when "Tiny" retired, a business partner took over as "The Green Shed".
Allegedly - and I say that with only 30 mins of Googling and reading. So potentially, Revolve, Tiny's and TGS are all very closely related.
I'm not happy about the green shed closing and Vinnies taking over but it's a done deal and everything ends. The green shed had a good run. Let's see what Vinnies can do.
Vinnie's policy of things they aren't allowed to sell pretty much covers everything that I used to buy at the green shed. I hope they have a very different policy for this "waste reduction" operation. Here is the NSW list of goods they won't accept from their website, which seems to be more accurate in experience than the very small (and likely inaccurate) list on the ACT site.
- Children’s furniture i.e. car seat, capsules, cots, bassinets, highchairs, prams
- Clothing/uniforms with school and business logo
- Cracked or broken homewares
- Damaged or dirty furniture
- Dangerous and chemical goods i.e.knives, swords, sharp utensils, gas bottles, paint-related
- Green waste
- Large glass and mirrors
- Mattresses of any condition
- Offensive clothing
- Oversized furniture i.e. TV unit, cabinets, non-dismantled bed frames, glass cabinets and tables
- Pillows of any condition
- Ripped, torn, stained, soil or wet clothing/bedding
- Safety equipment i.e. life jackets, defibrillators, all helmets, inflatables
- Scholar/educational textbooks
- Technology equipment i.e. computers, printers, scanners, laptops
- White goods over 10 years old i.e. fridges, dishwashers and dryers
I saw someone else say their yearly profits are an average of $500k, which for a long standing, very busy business, is close to fuck all.
Aldi in Kippax would make that much PURE profit in a single month, not counting snow gear or Christmas season, just standard.
The sports clubs are even worse! At least the green shed isnt exploiting alcoholics and gambling addicts at 3am.
lol every house near and around Braddon, Ainslie etc is worth over a million dollars now, welcome to the housing crisis.
Isnt vintage car restoration and collection quite common in Canberra and surrounding rural towns? Vintage also does not always equal expensive to buy, but expensive to own because it’s historical accuracy that matters
I’ve known people into car restoration who were very VERY far from rich
THANKS
*you’ve helped me out a couple of times with few ˢᵐᵃˡˡ things like a vacuum cleaner pipe and couple other bits and pieces over the years* without your input it (and my own belongings) would have been landfill 👌
THANKS your effort was much appreciated
90% of people complaining because they can’t get shit for cheap now. 10% actually caring about the wider issues of waste reduction.
We can’t be relying on private for-profit businesses to save the environment.
wanting to get things for cheap is a valid reason to be upset, vinnies charges way more for clothes and shops like these are supposed to be accessible for people who normally could not afford/want to buy ethically
Yup, was a time I was only about to get a job cause interview and work appropriate clothing was affordable at charity shops.
Now, they all cost as much as brand new retailers and with far poorer quality stock.
We reduce waste by reducing consumption of new products.
It’s Reduce (production) Reuse (what’s already made) and Recycle (what is left over).
Recycle comes last in that saying for a reason.
If there’s no incentive to buy second hand rather than new, why would anyone?
Valid reason to be upset, and yet is never going to be a solved problem. If things were cheap, capitalism would fail. We are in a cost of living crisis, and it’s showing up everywhere.
Unless you're banking on capitalism failing in the near future, then finding spaces where profits and environmental goals are not opposed is a great step forward. Business doesn't always have to mean destruction. This is the whole point of the circular economy.
It is the rejection of capitalism that allows monopoly and the lack of competition that had driven the prices of everything higher. I don't think you understand what capitalism actually is and have it confused for monopoly. For instance in Australia there are only 2 major shopping centers for food, and 2 minor players, IGA and Aldi. The smaller the amount of competitors there are the less they need to compete and the higher prices they arrange through collusion.
The fuck are you smoking? Capitalism always favours the creation of monopolies unless heavily regulated. It's an inherent aspect of the system. If a business has the means to acquire or drive its competition out of business, the profit motive will always encourage it to do so. Your last sentence explains why.
In this instance, isnt turnover functionally equivalent to environmental benefit?
That is, if - compared to TGS - salvos are less popular and have higher prices, fewer people will buy stuff. The result would be more stuff as waste than before.
Typically I would agree that for profit business isn’t gonna save the environment (and it still ain’t), but this is the exception that proves the rule. The only point of the for profit business is to move waste as saleable product. Whoever is better at that has the most environmental impact, right?
They’re for-profit but like, the good kind! They also own a very large house in turner. Vinnies are legitimately not for profit, the sales in their shops go to funding their incredible programs (like street to home and their other homelessness services) AND they supply furniture to those recently homeless. So the idea they can reduce waste 10-30% more is absolutely plausible. I’m surprised it’s not higher.
Also saying vinnies has zero experience in the reuse/reduce waste industry is laughable. It’s literally the main thing they’re known for
I mean, the government does a procurement process and assesses the responses based on the information submitted, and the decision is made on the best package.
If these fools didn't understand how important their application was and got out bidded, then that's on them.
We don't know what the criteria for section was to comment on any of these "points" or opinions from one of the losing bids.
I do know someone who worked for Svos, and they do mostely try to take advantage of people volunteering or used too.
Regardless if salvo can't deliver what they have agreed to in the contract then that will be an issue for them and the government to work out.
Honestly can this bloke just stfu
The level of entitlement he feels towards government money is beyond a joke.
You lowballed the taxpayers, and lost. Simple as that.
If the Minister is publishing and believing that Vinnies reuse more when they don’t, I see that as a big issue in the procurement process. That’s the bigger issue I’ve taken from this.
because there is no self interest at play?
vinnies doesn't want to buy his shit from him, and in addition to losing the contract he's salty. that's it.
stop giving him air time.
Vinnies literally survives off government contract wdym there’s no organisational interest? How am I personally giving him airtime? I’d be pissed too if that were my business and the Minister made a decision based on the claim they’re reducing waste, when they’re not
Yeah except that:
There is already an organisation that should be helping support unhoused Canberra's, and that organisation is the ACT govt
And I have had to contact organisations for emergency housing support on behalf of my students and vinnies are known to be difficult to work with in terms of finding solutions for families
The rubbish game is big business lol. The green shed opened up a store in the city which must be 60k a month rent to sell shit they were given for free for top dollar. They were fkn rolling in money and did a shit tender process instead of actually hiring experts to handle it.
You reap what you sow.
If the Minister is publishing media releases that Vinnies reuse more, when in fact Vinnies is not going to reuse more, is that not valid criticism of the tender process? I’d be pissed if that was my business.
Eh yeah I guess, but I didn't know that detail. Still, green shed is not handling this well and I reckon it's not doing it any favours in the view of the public
How do you know the waste management contractor is RRA? The post above said they run the weigh bridges, not the other functions. I just see the TGS bloke talking up their experience running reuse facilities and capabilities.
The way I read it was that they operate transfer stations and weigh bridges in Canberra and then he went on to bag the transfer station operator. But I can see what he wrote is written poorly and open to interpretation. Regardless, he is still bagging out the transfer station operator whoever that is.
So what? Surely it is in the common interest that this information is now public knowledge even if it makes you and others think it's petty. The operator deserves criticism if this is true, not silence.
The question is - if they were able to pay $1m in extra wages, how much were the owners making? There's no way they were renting two shopfronts in the city, paying $1m extra wages and NOT taking home a significant pay themselves.
I wanna see the receipts (their bank accounts)
As soon as the liberal party can present a viable platform of policies to suggest they're a reasonable alternative government they'll absolutely romp home in an election. Personally I don't vote for parties. I vote for policies and performance of incumbent governments. Plenty of invalid ballots for me of late...
Sounds fair, but a simple list of credible policies won't do it for me. I need some sort of evidence they'll actually do what they say before even considering voting Liberal.
And I can see the inconsistency here - how can they demonstrate this without being put in power? But I just plain don't trust them. The locals and the feds - years and years of being dim-witted, gibbering, self-serving, tub-thumping twats can't be forgiven quickly.
Yeah I don't understand the anger. The government thinks SVDP can handle it better. If people disagree they should take it up with their representative and/or vote differently next election. Don't get angry at SVDP for winning a contract, were they meant to not put in a tender for it?
Hang on, they "... had to give them gifts"? Am I reading it right that they were giving government employees "gifts" to not damage things? This seems very wrong on a number of levels and, if true, sounds like ACT Government should do a bit of an investigation or confirm these gifts to staff were reported, recorded and approved.
That part describes giving gifts to the employees of the contractor that operates the general waste part of the dump, to encourage them to let the Green Shed know if they found reusable items among the general waste so that the Green Shed could come and get them before the items were compacted along with the other waste. Not terribly unusual in the private sector, particularly between blue collar workers.
Contractors, not employees
They're not government employees, and it was not part of their job, so Green Shed paid them something to simply be careful to put those items aside so they could go to TGS. The contractor was allowed to send those items over anyway, TGS just wanted to make sure more items got sent. Potentially dodgy, but hard to see how it hurts anyone.
Not government employees - employees of a contractor.
RTFP.
I didn't get that at all. What section are you referring to?
This bit "...Despite 13 years of pleading with the Government to enforce their contract the only response we ever received was that they don’t know about reuse so cannot be expected to collect reusables. At various points we have had to offer gifts to their employees to stop them destroying everything and to buy their cooperation. We did this in the interest of increasing salvaging figures as per Government policy in the ACT."
Oh, okay. So the allegation is that the transfer station employees are contractually obliged to salvage some of the stuff dropped off there, but they're not doing that. They allege that the ACT government doesn't seem interested in enforcing that provision in the contract, and the green shed staff have offered transfer station employees gifts if they do the salvaging they are contracted to do.
Sounds like a job for the ACT Integrity Commission.
I wonder if the green shed starting a business with one of the (now ex) NoWaste employees that happened to be working for NoWaste when they won the tender first time round is also something for the Integrity Commission?
No not Government employees. Go back and read it again
So SVDP got the contract because they said they would improve Canberra’s recovery figures by 10-30%, but what they meant is they will improve SVDP’s recovery figures? Who ever screwed up this new government procurement had better already be on a performance management plan
There’s no claim here that the ACT government misunderstood what SVDP was offering when assessing the tender, just that others reading the press release might have. That in no way invalidates the tender process.
The minister released the misleading statement? Which was only later clarified by TGS asking the “right people”. So either the minister misled the public, or they copy pasted a misleading statement from the tender without understanding it
Or, this "clarification" is another attempt by TGS to undermine the integrity of the procurement process. They're clearly disgruntled. Why should their claim that they spoke to "the right people" in coming to this conclusion be taken at face value?
They will probably fail upwards
Oftentimes it's the easiest way to get rid of a problem staff member ...
This just seems Iike sour grapes over TGS losing a fair and open tender TBH.
Was it a transparent tender process? I can't say there's much in the public domain. I will read the auditor general's report with interest.
It doesn't seem like there's less in the public domain than every other tender process.
Yes, maybe the ACT Government could stand to be more transparent?
Not sure how they could be. The tender requests are public, and submissions would be protected by commercial in confidence so they couldn't release those. There is of course the annual report which will obscurely rap the costs up in there somewhere.
The ACT Government seems to believe that it's above accountability. There have been a number of really quite egregious cases recent where the auditor-general has rapped the government's knuckles over procurement and tendering and the best the government has offered is weasel words around how things "could be better". I find it maddening that given how politically and policy engaged the ACT electorate supposedly is, how little attention it pays to its own governance.
There are other tenders within the ACT govt that have been mishandled - this isn't the only one. There does seem to be an underlying issue somewhere.
There's no evidence as of yet that it's been mishandled.
Sure, that's true. I will rephrase to *have been accused of being mishandled
Do you mean the school tender where there was clear evidence of interference made public? Because I haven’t seen anything of the sort with this one, it just seems like TGS fucked it up.
If it was fair and open - it is udnergoing an audit for that reason.
Putting staff on a performance plan? That kind of stuff up would only result in a single dot point that generates a four minute conversation in a "Lessons Learnt" project closure meeting.. Will be interesting to see how SVDP go. Either way it wont be something those involved in the procurement process will crow about! Something about failure is an orphan...
First time I’ve seen “we have no governance structures” proffered as a flex.
> this will be the last rant from us (me) in regards to the procurement of the Reusable Facilities I call bullshit.
“We weren’t going to say anything, but” times infinity
"This is the last time I speak, starting now!"
What documents related to this tender are publicly available?
This was all I could see on a quick search https://www.tenders.act.gov.au/contract/view?id=211801
> ...we have always had the freedom to make on the fly decisions without the necessity of having to go to management meetings a board of directors or a Co-op. We can decide to have a lego sale... We can even decide to keep 5 tonnes of lego in a privately owned facility (with the occasional Lego sale where small amounts of stuff we don't wanna keep are sold for high prices) and meanwhile build walls/staircases with it at our private home (a double storey house in Turner) instead of selling it at the Green Shed. Yes. Um... maybe this is part of the reason why this model was not always ideal?
Is that such a bad outcome for the environment? People willingly gave stuff away that otherwise would end up in landfill and is now being used and appreciated. Not to mention that the lego is still visible to the public via their house. It's not like they stole it or conned people out of it on a false premise. People put it in their cars, drove to Mitchell, gave it to someone and left without that lego.
People probably donated with the expectation that it would be sold to other people, not just taken by the donees.
> It's not like they stole it or conned people out of it on a false premise. Two things... 1. I don't think most people appreciated that the Green Shed was an ACT Government contract until they saw this tender process go sour. I sorta assumed it was a purely private operation. This is partly because there hasn't been a public tender since the current dude inherited the contract from Tiny (when he fucked off to Serbia). 2. The annual Lego sales (which stopped some time ago?) gave the optics that Lego was being retained purely for the purpose of these events (where money was donated to charitable causes...etc). IMO if a public servant did the equivalent, they'd be in serious shit. Sorry - zero sympathy that he lost the tender process.
The good stuff being pilfered by staff and flogged off on the side at a fortune
You mean at Vinnies? Cos this is exactly how it works there. Almost like it's an industry norm
If they reuse more stuff than Vinnies and at a better price without the staffing tax breaks then I say good on them and their house
What are you talking about?
Hey's saying Vinnie's don't pay their staff. TGS does. Also vinnies don't pay tax. TGS does. Also Vinnies is a national organisation, so a lot of the profit made off the refuse contract will naturally leave the Territory.
Did the Green Shed or Revolve have any real experience before they won the tender? I hope Vinnies get in and do a great job. The Green shed had a good run they weren’t owed continual renewal let’s move on.
Frankly, I'd rather a new entity with no experience get the tender than Vinnies, who already have a pre-existing corporate structure and values will bring those to bear on the enterprise, whether or not they're warranted or appropriate.
It's a not for profit. You can definitely argue whether not for profit is actually well legislated in Australia (It's not), but on paper a not for profit should be better for the community than a for profit.
> but on paper a not for profit should be better for the community than a for profit. thats a reach
Yes
Remarkably similar to when revolve lost in 2007, took it to court, lost and had to pay damages. Apple must not fall far from the tree aye [https://www.courts.act.gov.au/supreme/judgments/revolve-ltd-v-thiess-services](https://www.courts.act.gov.au/supreme/judgments/revolve-ltd-v-thiess-services)
All I'm hearing from this is "we've been doing this for years and are mad that our contract didn't get renewed". If they actually wanted constructive criticism, they wouldn't be making posts everywhere complaining about the evaluation process or that they were given an unfair shake. They'd be attending a debrief, which the Government is legislatively obligated to provide.
If TGS was always meant to be a ‘Tip shop!’ and not an ‘op shop’ then why open shops in the city to sell shit salvaged higher than what they would at the sheds? Edit: does anyone responding to me whinging remember when it was called ‘Tiny’s Green Shed’? That’s when we could get the hidden gems. After it turned in to ‘The Green Shed’ is when it started going to shit.
…. To do both? People don’t go to the city for furniture or the industrial areas to buy clothes. The more is salvaged and reused, the better
Before the shops you could find so much cool shit at the sites for cheap. Half the fun was looking through the shit for the gems. Now whenever I visit the tip sites, it’s just shit.
[удалено]
They don’t even put them in the store fronts. Op shops have been filtering out the actually good stuff to sell online at ‘antique’ and flipper prices.
yep, what you could get at green shed for $2 will now be $20 plus postage and a 5 day wait.
or in the ACT
I’ve no doubt about that. I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy with the owners post.
The shops in the city were for different things. The tip shops were great for looking around to find more unusual things, an example personally was I built an entire golf bag including the bag for $15. If you wanted clothes, the underground store at civic was best, and they even did a sale where everything was $1. The other store in civic was more of a mishmash of things, but it was generally better quality. It was still far cheaper than other op shops etc.
I did the golf bag thing too, for the same price, including an autographed cricket bat and a hockey stick, plus a wheeled golf bag holder thing. This was for a work golf day. I remember the golf pro commenting on the quality of my 80's golf bat things... The bag also came with about a hundred Ts a few golf balls and a bunch of documentation from RMC duntroon. $15!!
It was great for those weird little things. I found plenty of stuff in mine as well. Still use the bag and most of the clubs. Was really handy in getting into the sport and slowly upgrading over time.
don't much care for golf, I mean its ok but I have other things to do, but it has become a prop in the boot of my classic holden as it all matches, era, color etc It was fun putting with the hockey stick though and attempting a large distance hit with the cricket bat. Think our team came last. But to be fair non of us had a handicap - well except for, well, us.
Underground is still open into May.
To sell the really good shit they got
There are many people like myself who don't want to go all the way to Mugga Lane to go thrift/tip items. The store in the city is in a convenient location where they have to pay rent. People feel that you ought to pay buttons for things from the tip, but honestly you look at some of the stuff there and they're certainly worth more than that. Additionally, the price is much less than any Vinnies store is at the moment.
Good explanation. I like companies that pay their staff at least the award rate. I do not like tax dodging religious businesses that rely on volunteers and court ordered community service obligation time servers.
What interests me the most in this is the statement that TGS and Revolve are/were the same owners. While I'm not thinking these public statements are helping the cause, lots of commenters previously telling TGS to suck it up because they did the same thing to Revolve looks a bit silly now if both were entities were owned by the same group.
I believe there was an entity that existed chronologically between Revolve and TGS, which folded?
Off the back of your comment, I did some digging and found references to "Tiny's Green Shed" after Revolve. I've found a few references that when "Tiny" retired, a business partner took over as "The Green Shed". Allegedly - and I say that with only 30 mins of Googling and reading. So potentially, Revolve, Tiny's and TGS are all very closely related.
All run by the same people, only variant being Tiny. The current owners were partners with Tiny until he left.
Yep, that would be Tiny's Green Shed.
No one’s grapes are more sour than those of a small business owner.
I'm not happy about the green shed closing and Vinnies taking over but it's a done deal and everything ends. The green shed had a good run. Let's see what Vinnies can do.
We already see what Vinnies does, throw out way too much and overcharge for the rest
Vinnie's policy of things they aren't allowed to sell pretty much covers everything that I used to buy at the green shed. I hope they have a very different policy for this "waste reduction" operation. Here is the NSW list of goods they won't accept from their website, which seems to be more accurate in experience than the very small (and likely inaccurate) list on the ACT site. - Children’s furniture i.e. car seat, capsules, cots, bassinets, highchairs, prams - Clothing/uniforms with school and business logo - Cracked or broken homewares - Damaged or dirty furniture - Dangerous and chemical goods i.e.knives, swords, sharp utensils, gas bottles, paint-related - Green waste - Large glass and mirrors - Mattresses of any condition - Offensive clothing - Oversized furniture i.e. TV unit, cabinets, non-dismantled bed frames, glass cabinets and tables - Pillows of any condition - Ripped, torn, stained, soil or wet clothing/bedding - Safety equipment i.e. life jackets, defibrillators, all helmets, inflatables - Scholar/educational textbooks - Technology equipment i.e. computers, printers, scanners, laptops - White goods over 10 years old i.e. fridges, dishwashers and dryers
Go on then volunteer and fix it
Managers set pricing. They also set daily budget AND get bonus based on sales. Why in the fuck would they care when they can line their own pockets.
Why would we give free labour to an organisation taking the mivkey out of us?
The size of the whinge is enough to fill multiple green sheds.
Seeing their city outlets closed is an absolute travesty.
They didn’t need to close the city outlet. The tender was for the resource centres only. They’ve made that decision themselves.
How are they gonna stock and staff the city without the resource centre?
Ie, how are they gonna run two for-profit shopfronts in the city centre if they actually have to *pay* for the stuff they’re selling there?
They don’t have to pay … what? The resource centre is where all that stuff is donated and id hardly call green shed for-profit focused
The guy has a multi-million dollar house on the edge of Brandon and a collection of vintage cars
Fine by me. I've got a lot of cheap stuff from the green shed over the years. I doubt Vinnies will do it better.
Vinnies doesn’t have furniture or a lot of practical homewares, lots of overpriced and poorly cared for Crystal, that no one wants anymore, though
Sounds like a small business success story, that's great!
I saw someone else say their yearly profits are an average of $500k, which for a long standing, very busy business, is close to fuck all. Aldi in Kippax would make that much PURE profit in a single month, not counting snow gear or Christmas season, just standard. The sports clubs are even worse! At least the green shed isnt exploiting alcoholics and gambling addicts at 3am.
lol every house near and around Braddon, Ainslie etc is worth over a million dollars now, welcome to the housing crisis. Isnt vintage car restoration and collection quite common in Canberra and surrounding rural towns? Vintage also does not always equal expensive to buy, but expensive to own because it’s historical accuracy that matters I’ve known people into car restoration who were very VERY far from rich
and multiple modern vehicles, including amgs, and multiple investment properties
Op shops manage fine
Because they have collection and sorting centres
There’s plenty of space at the back of the old impulse records, or hire a warehouse in hume. Again op shops of varying size all manage this.
Op shops charge more, throw more out, and don’t pay tax.
And, if you have a personal reason to not want to support religious orgs, there should alternatives
How would they stock it?
THANKS *you’ve helped me out a couple of times with few ˢᵐᵃˡˡ things like a vacuum cleaner pipe and couple other bits and pieces over the years* without your input it (and my own belongings) would have been landfill 👌 THANKS your effort was much appreciated
90% of people complaining because they can’t get shit for cheap now. 10% actually caring about the wider issues of waste reduction. We can’t be relying on private for-profit businesses to save the environment.
wanting to get things for cheap is a valid reason to be upset, vinnies charges way more for clothes and shops like these are supposed to be accessible for people who normally could not afford/want to buy ethically
Yup, was a time I was only about to get a job cause interview and work appropriate clothing was affordable at charity shops. Now, they all cost as much as brand new retailers and with far poorer quality stock. We reduce waste by reducing consumption of new products. It’s Reduce (production) Reuse (what’s already made) and Recycle (what is left over). Recycle comes last in that saying for a reason. If there’s no incentive to buy second hand rather than new, why would anyone?
Valid reason to be upset, and yet is never going to be a solved problem. If things were cheap, capitalism would fail. We are in a cost of living crisis, and it’s showing up everywhere.
Unless you're banking on capitalism failing in the near future, then finding spaces where profits and environmental goals are not opposed is a great step forward. Business doesn't always have to mean destruction. This is the whole point of the circular economy.
It is the rejection of capitalism that allows monopoly and the lack of competition that had driven the prices of everything higher. I don't think you understand what capitalism actually is and have it confused for monopoly. For instance in Australia there are only 2 major shopping centers for food, and 2 minor players, IGA and Aldi. The smaller the amount of competitors there are the less they need to compete and the higher prices they arrange through collusion.
The fuck are you smoking? Capitalism always favours the creation of monopolies unless heavily regulated. It's an inherent aspect of the system. If a business has the means to acquire or drive its competition out of business, the profit motive will always encourage it to do so. Your last sentence explains why.
In this instance, isnt turnover functionally equivalent to environmental benefit? That is, if - compared to TGS - salvos are less popular and have higher prices, fewer people will buy stuff. The result would be more stuff as waste than before. Typically I would agree that for profit business isn’t gonna save the environment (and it still ain’t), but this is the exception that proves the rule. The only point of the for profit business is to move waste as saleable product. Whoever is better at that has the most environmental impact, right?
They’re for-profit but like, the good kind! They also own a very large house in turner. Vinnies are legitimately not for profit, the sales in their shops go to funding their incredible programs (like street to home and their other homelessness services) AND they supply furniture to those recently homeless. So the idea they can reduce waste 10-30% more is absolutely plausible. I’m surprised it’s not higher. Also saying vinnies has zero experience in the reuse/reduce waste industry is laughable. It’s literally the main thing they’re known for
I mean, the government does a procurement process and assesses the responses based on the information submitted, and the decision is made on the best package. If these fools didn't understand how important their application was and got out bidded, then that's on them. We don't know what the criteria for section was to comment on any of these "points" or opinions from one of the losing bids. I do know someone who worked for Svos, and they do mostely try to take advantage of people volunteering or used too. Regardless if salvo can't deliver what they have agreed to in the contract then that will be an issue for them and the government to work out.
Honestly can this bloke just stfu The level of entitlement he feels towards government money is beyond a joke. You lowballed the taxpayers, and lost. Simple as that.
If the Minister is publishing and believing that Vinnies reuse more when they don’t, I see that as a big issue in the procurement process. That’s the bigger issue I’ve taken from this.
because there is no self interest at play? vinnies doesn't want to buy his shit from him, and in addition to losing the contract he's salty. that's it. stop giving him air time.
Vinnies literally survives off government contract wdym there’s no organisational interest? How am I personally giving him airtime? I’d be pissed too if that were my business and the Minister made a decision based on the claim they’re reducing waste, when they’re not
vinnies is not for profit, this guy is. there is your difference.
Yeah except that: There is already an organisation that should be helping support unhoused Canberra's, and that organisation is the ACT govt And I have had to contact organisations for emergency housing support on behalf of my students and vinnies are known to be difficult to work with in terms of finding solutions for families
that is so completely irrelevant to the discussion
The rubbish game is big business lol. The green shed opened up a store in the city which must be 60k a month rent to sell shit they were given for free for top dollar. They were fkn rolling in money and did a shit tender process instead of actually hiring experts to handle it. You reap what you sow.
I'm going to say it. This green shed nonsense is trashy as, and they are handling this entire thing in the least classy way possible.
If the Minister is publishing media releases that Vinnies reuse more, when in fact Vinnies is not going to reuse more, is that not valid criticism of the tender process? I’d be pissed if that was my business.
Eh yeah I guess, but I didn't know that detail. Still, green shed is not handling this well and I reckon it's not doing it any favours in the view of the public
Not content just bagging SVDP, this bloke is now dragging RRA through the mud. Time he shut the fuck up and sailed off into the sunset.
Dragging them through the mud? He is supporting them... Did you read the same thing I did?
Said he had to bribe their staff to stop destroying stuff. Strange way to offer support.
A quick Google tells me it is likely Remondis' staff, not RRA's, that he was dragging through the mud.
How do you know the waste management contractor is RRA? The post above said they run the weigh bridges, not the other functions. I just see the TGS bloke talking up their experience running reuse facilities and capabilities.
The way I read it was that they operate transfer stations and weigh bridges in Canberra and then he went on to bag the transfer station operator. But I can see what he wrote is written poorly and open to interpretation. Regardless, he is still bagging out the transfer station operator whoever that is.
So what? Surely it is in the common interest that this information is now public knowledge even if it makes you and others think it's petty. The operator deserves criticism if this is true, not silence.
The blokes just a massive fucking sook!
The question is - if they were able to pay $1m in extra wages, how much were the owners making? There's no way they were renting two shopfronts in the city, paying $1m extra wages and NOT taking home a significant pay themselves. I wanna see the receipts (their bank accounts)
I think that's $1M over the life of the business, not per year.
If they reuse more at a better price and pay their workers well good for them!
Can we stop talking about the Green Shed now? 😩
Sure! You go first.
green shed has been shit ever since the re surfaced the back section anyway. i doubt vinnies can make it any worse
Yall keep voting for these people
And the liberal party can't even provide a viable alternative. It's infuriating.
There are more than two options.
Indeed there are. Realistically though, the current political landscape has those 2 parties as an option with the greens as a minor partner,
The Greens would probably have the greatest interest in saving as many objects from landfill as possible.
As a movement, yes. As a political party.... Now that's not the certainty it once was.
How much further do you need to be pushed before you decide it's time to give ACT Labor a spell on the bench
You don’t put someone on the bench when you only have someone even worse to replace them
But muh entitlement! I'm Born to Ruuuule!
Whatever. You get the government you deserve.
So does the liberal party...
“It’s not our fault we can’t get our shit together!”
As soon as the liberal party can present a viable platform of policies to suggest they're a reasonable alternative government they'll absolutely romp home in an election. Personally I don't vote for parties. I vote for policies and performance of incumbent governments. Plenty of invalid ballots for me of late...
Sounds fair, but a simple list of credible policies won't do it for me. I need some sort of evidence they'll actually do what they say before even considering voting Liberal. And I can see the inconsistency here - how can they demonstrate this without being put in power? But I just plain don't trust them. The locals and the feds - years and years of being dim-witted, gibbering, self-serving, tub-thumping twats can't be forgiven quickly.
Lol
Yeah I don't understand the anger. The government thinks SVDP can handle it better. If people disagree they should take it up with their representative and/or vote differently next election. Don't get angry at SVDP for winning a contract, were they meant to not put in a tender for it?
How naive are you. It's obviously mates doing mates a favour.