Ellie Auskelis’s kitchen table came from the tip shop. So did her bicycle, and her children’s bicycles. And the kayak strapped to the roof of her car.
“I think [the table] cost me $10 with eight chairs,” says Auskelis. “It’s beautiful and wooden. It’s extendable, and it’s just glorious.”
Tip shops or reuse shops are popular in regional Australia and often operate in tandem with the landfill sites run by the local council. Tip workers assess goods as they come in, diverting salvageable waste from landfill. If you have a good eye and some DIY skills, they can be treasure troves.
But Auskelis’s local tip shop, in Armidale in the New England region of New South Wales, was abruptly closed by council in December on grounds of public safety. In January, she started a petition to save the shop that she says plays an important role in supporting at-risk members of the community, including Armidale’s growing Ezidi community.
“It was kind of like a third space for a lot of people,” she says.
“Not like home, not like work, but an extra place where people went and socialised.”
Auskelis’s home is full of things from the tip shop. Last year, she had a waste-free Christmas, with everything from the tree to the presents under it sourced from the tip shop.
Armidale council said in a public statement this month that the decision to close the shop just before the Christmas break was not taken “lightly”, and that out of respect to the former lessees of the shop it had taken “a minimalist approach to the amount of information it disclosed”. It added that council would be “only too happy to set the record straight” if the lessees provided written consent.
The council told Guardian Australia it was reviewing all options to re-establish the service as soon as practicable and that council staff have been continuing to stockpile items brought to the recovery centre for sale in a future tip shop, as well as preparing a temporary site for the community to use.