About The Bower

The Bower is an award-winning environmental charity and a champion of reuse and repair.  We are a not-for-profit committed to reducing landfill. Our range of services and programs are all based on the ethos of reuse and repair – this is the principal that guides everything we do.

By 2018, we’ll have been implementing the idea of circular economy in Sydney for 20 years. 

Our organisation has agreements with over 21 Sydney metropolitan councils to collect unwanted household goods and rehome them. Nearly 2.7 million residents in Sydney now have access to this free service.

We also partner with many other organisations and individuals.

More about our collection service

Booking a collection is not the only way to donate to the Bower – we also accept donations over the counter in our two stores. In recent years we’ve taken home the Premier’s Award for Environmental Excellence at the NSW Green Globe Awards, the Community Leadership Award at NSW Green Globe awards, and the Sustainability Leadership Award at Inner West Business Environment Awards.

The Bower is a registered charity with deductible gift recipient status, and you can donate to us directly on this website.

Read more detailed information about our charity, including information on membership, AGMs and our strategic plans.

You can also apply to be a member.

The Bower’s Objectives

  • Avoiding and reducing the amount of ‘hard waste’ going to landfill.
  • Raising awareness of the value of waste avoidance and reduction through resource recovery, reuse, repair and recycling.
  • Generating employment opportunities and skills training in the community.
  • Providing affordable goods sourced from the waste stream to low income earners and other disadvantaged groups in the community.
  • Encouraging community awareness of environmentally responsible design and manufacture.
  • Advocating for long-life design, repairable products and the use of sustainable, recyclable materials for appliances and furnishings.
  • Providing benefits to the community via these objectives.
  • Involving the community in the development and achievement of these objectives.

The Bower’s Threefold Mission

  • Environment: to reduce the amount of waste entering landfill by reclaiming household items for repair, reuse and resale.
  • Creativity: to encourage reuse via repair and upcycle workshops.
  • Community: to provide affordable goods to low-income earners and other disadvantaged groups and to generate local employment.

The Bower’s Management Values

  • We operate from integrity. We say what we do and we do what we say
  • We encourage initiative. We are proactive, resourceful and learn from our experiences
  • We advocate transparency. We embrace diversity, open communication and encourage colleagues to evolve within the origination
  • We perform ethically. We deliver quality and economically, environmentally and socially sound programs
  • We administer equitable treatment. All stakeholders and business transactions are treated equal and fair to safeguard the Bower’s impartiality.
We acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation who are the traditional custodians of this land and pay respect to Elders past, present and future and extend that respect to other Aboriginal people.