Commoning repair : framing a community response to transitioning waste economies

Local councils in Australia are faced with the urgency of managing bulky household waste and responding to diminishing capacity for landfilling, at a time when policy is calling for ambitious economic reform. Policy and planning responses at national, state and local government levels clearly identify moving toward a circular economy as integral to the sustainable future of Australian cities. Drawing on two studies exploring cultures of repair and community waste practices in western Sydney—one of the most culturally diverse and rapidly transforming urban areas in the world—we show that the transition to a circular economy means a recalibration of the relationship between governments and communities, and a renegotiation of responsibilities for managing household waste. We propose that amongst the first tasks in this transition are to identify and align plural economies of material circulation at the community level including practices of reuse, repair and share, with a circular economy agenda, creating a ‘repair commons’.