Politics By The Armful

I’m going to show you what a large scale effective political act in a second hand store looked like recently.

In case you haven’t heard of it, Wanaka Wastebuasters is set within a massive circular economy with all of Wanaka’s greenwaste shredded into heaped deep black compost for sale to rebuild its intensively developed landscapes, furniture is cleaned and upcycled for rental homes, construction offcuts like doors and tiles and windows are donated, bikes and helmets and skis and ski poles all arrive in bulk for each different sporting season, glass and paper and plastics are sorted into bins, colours, and batches for bulk sale … so far not too different from similar facilities across New Zealand.

It’s a big part of the Wanaka community in no small part because it has a strong publicity machine that advertises before every movie at Cinema Paradiso or Ruby’s Cinema.

Today marked out why Wastebusters is so special. Inside a big carefully decorated warehouse with a fire in winter and a constant bustle of staff, is where all the action was today.

Because this morning was simply $1 dollar day at Wanaka Wastebusters.

This is where your kitchen items and clothes and shoes and books resided. $1 dollar day was insanely crowded. It was pumping. It was heaving. If they’d brought in a dj it would have looked like a rave.

What made this morning special for a start was the kind of New Zealand it revealed. It was 95% women and children, milling about for children’s clothes and shoes second hand. If Wanaka had  a K’Mart these young parents would be taking their children elsewhere, so this fulfils that very specific and necessary niche. Wanaka Warehouse opened last Thursday but you just can’t beat $1; the red shed was near-empty.

It was 65% immigrant, meaning Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Fiji, Solomon Islands. These are the cooks, hotel workers, vineyard workers, dairy farm workers, and aged care nurses doing hard and long hours on jobs that this kind of economy needs done and whose faces are unlikely to ever feature on Radio NZ, Country Life, ZB, TVNZ, Women’s Weekly or indeed any other mainstream media at all. They need clothes that are warm enough for this climate, durable enough for the hard work they do, cheap enough for their wages, and not particularly showy. As groups they connect near-completely on-line.

None of the above will be found sitting to be seen at the outside cafes and bars and restaurants on Wanaka’s waterfront. None in short would ordinarily be visible. Yet here they were revealed en masse.

By 10am were 35 couples or assortments of mothers and children snaking all through the shop trying to get to the one counter, all with huge bundles of clothes and shoes and kitchen items in their arms. As the morning proceeded it grew and grew. But this wasn’t the Smith and Caughey’s winter sale where 33% off gets you a stainless steel Wusthof Dreiseck steamer system at $380.

Nor was it the same as a potlatch in which opulent feasts give way to a grand distribution of gifts and goods from tribal patrons. Nor did it exist under the kinds of societal pressure one might find in periods of intense war when all must contribute to a common good in moments of extremity.

If this were about 2,000 years ago it would appear akin to a kind of primitive Christianity in the eastern Roman world. There, if the poor survived at all, it was primarily through networks of mutual support, in which family and neighbours helped each other out, shared possessions and wealth, and formed new bridges of social bond into non-believing households.

Oh no this was an economy circulating at a speed and with commodities rarely seen to the public eye, where $20 is so much you can barely see where you’re stepping.

Wastebusters isn’t a commune of any form. It’s not Fabian, Syndicalist, Anarcho-Socialist, Leninist, or anything party-political. It is a high-functioning low-cost recycling facility. If you are in central Otago needing a job, they are looking for a new Resource Recovery Manager.

Today what I saw was the full extent of its social necessity and strength for hundreds and hundreds of people. It revealed a politics of the poor that is more dignified than charity, less stale than hospice shops, way more fun than any shopping I’ve otherwise done, and broader in sensibility and town impact in its operations. It is of course also a million miles from state welfare instruments.

Also all the staff have a very groovy and young vibe. Check out their site.

Today isn’t the moment for party or policy discussion. It is a moment of mainstream silence sufficient to hear the thrum of the politics of the underneath, one great armful of clothes at a time.