Publicize, promote and use the varied businesses/services collecting and marketing used, repaired and rental consumer goods, especially electronics, in the city/county.
Best Practice of this action
Rating Guideline
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Identify and provide city economic development support to relevant businesses; promote events such as fix-it clinics; encourage community members to shop at and donate to such businesses; post the CoolClimate household-level consumption-based GHG calculator on the city solid waste page. Report building reuse under BPA 5.3 and building deconstruction under BPA 22.8. Report efforts to strengthen value-added businesses utilizing local "waste" material under BPA 25.4. |
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Publicize and promote reuse/repair/rental businesses on your city website, in newsletter articles; facilitate neighbor-to-neighbor reuse of large items before annual 'curbside cleanups.' |
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Document increased use of these businesses; organize volunteers (or support others) to run at least one "fix-it" clinic for community members. |
Resources
Household Consumption:
- For the best, most educational household-level consumption-based GHG calculator, suitable for posting on city waste management /reuse/ recycling pages, see the CoolClimate Network carbon footprint page.
- Help is available from ReUSE Minnesota, a non-profit organization who goal is to increase the visibility of MN's reuse sector by highlighting its economic, social and environmental benefits.
Reuse/Repair/Rental/etc. Programs:
- Rental and sharing businesses arbitrage surplus capacity, increasing the productivity of existing goods and services. Examples include tool and house rental/sharing, coupon businesses helping fill unused restaurant/event seats, shared office and kitchen space, and bike/car rental/sharing.
- See 32 recommended Policies for Shareable Cities that enable cities to benefit from the sharing economy in the areas of food, jobs, housing, and transportation. The term collaborative consumption describes the shift in consumer values from ownership to access, and how promoters around the world are using network technologies to do more with less by renting, lending, swapping, bartering, gifting and sharing products on a scale never before possible.
- See, for example, the Reuse MN Directory and Hennepin County's Choose to Reuse directory
- Fix-it clinics that pair volunteer repair people with community members who bring in broken household items. Hennepin County regularly hosts them but many other counties and cities have hosted clinics!
- Learn how to host your own Fix-it clinics or swap events, which can encourage reuse of clothing, games, toys, yard tools, sports equipment, and more!
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