Garage sale trail soars

Last Sunday people all over Australia were bagging a bargain or making extra cash by participating in the national Garage Sale Trail.

In Bondi alone, where the event was born last year as part of the Sizzle Bondi Beach Community Festival, there were approximately 150 garage sales.

Nationwide, the initiative exceeded its 1000 sale target, with about 1600 registered sales held throughout the country.

Garage Sale Trail director, Darryl Nichols, says the event began as an attempt to create awareness about dumping problems in Bondi.  Yet even he has been surprised by its success. “It was really just meant to be a whole lot of fun.”

The event encourages recycling and sustainability and awareness of how we consume. Those who held a sale were asked to donate 10 per cent of their profit to Keep Australia Beautiful.

While the initiative encourages people to consider environmental concerns, it is primarily about community.

“Sustainability is an intrinsic bi-product of what is really a community-based event,” Nichols says. “The most humbling outcome for us is the many stories of people who have lived in the same street for years but never connected with their neighbours and did as a result of the Garage Sale Trail.”

This year Beach Road Hotel in Bondi showed its community spirit by having a garage sale, selling old pinball machines and other unwanted goods. Nichols says he’d love to see more businesses getting involved next year.

He points outs garage sales have always been part of our cultural fabric.

“Australians have been practicing sustainability through garage sales for years,” he says. “We just didn’t know it.”

The event could not have been possible without the support of councils across Australia. Waverley Council, led by Mayor Sally Betts, has been particularly supportive.

“It gives locals the opportunity for their possessions to be reused by someone else, which means the goods avoid going to landfill,” Cr Betts says. “It’s also a great community event where people get to free up some spare space, meet the neighbours and nab a bargain.”

The mayor says the interest in vintage and retro goods in the area is high, and may have contributed to the impressive efforts of her community. “We had more than 130 garage sales registered, the highest in the country, and it’s fantastic that our community is getting behind this event.”

Bondi resident Doug McLean held a garage sale this year and last. Involved in various environmental initiatives in the past, he recognises the ecological value of the initiative.

“Last year it was quite profitable for me but more than that it was a way of clearing out stuff from my house,” he says.

While last year he sold mostly pot plants and odds and ends, this time McLean bravely set out to sell his house.

Nichols says the success of the Garage Sale Trail this year has ensured its return next year.

“Most certainly this will be an annual event. It’s locked in the cultural calendar.”

– By Erin Holohan