NSW Reuse Impact Calculator

About the tool

This tool offers a high-level estimate of the triple bottom line impacts of reuse activities. It converts the number or weight of second hand items into estimates of environmental, social and economic impacts.

Who should use this tool?

This tool is designed for organisations to estimate the potential impacts of their reuse operations or initiatives. It is designed for use by charity op shops, nonprofit reuse shops, commercial reuse organisations as well as local councils as well as Australian governments. It is not designed for smaller scales, such as a consumer tool to measure individual reuse purchases.

About the tool

This tool is designed for organisations to estimate the potential impacts of their reuse operations or initiatives. It is designed for use by charity op shops, nonprofit reuse shops, commercial reuse organisations as well as local councils as well as Australian governments. It is not designed for smaller scales, such as a consumer tool to measure individual reuse purchases.

How can it be used?

How can it be used? It can be used to measure the impact of a reuse organisation by any relevant time period – a day, week, month or a year. It can be used to project the potential impact of planned reuse initiatives, by entering the projected estimated weight or quantity of items targeted for reuse. It can assist reuse organisations engage with donors and shoppers to demonstrate their impact, and support grant applications from either councils or reuse organisations by estimating their impact.

Calculator options

There are two separate calculators based on the same datasets, namely the NSW Reuse Data Study. The high level calculator offers three main product categories – Clothing & Textiles, Toys Games & Household Items, and Building & Industrial – and tonnes are used as the weight input. The detailed calculator drills down into 40 different product items, categorised under each of the three categories with kilograms used as the weight input.

Unsure on the number of items to input?

If you're unsure about the number or weight of items reused, we suggest testing different scenarios to show the possible range of results.

Simply use the calculator tool with a lower estimate first, then repeat with a higher estimate. The results will give you a range to work with.

For example, if you estimate the number of reused clothing items to be between 3,000 and 4,500, start by running the calculator with 3,000 items (lower estimate), then run it again with 4,500 items (upper estimate).

Exporting the data

Data can be downloaded in either PDF or CSV format for ease of reporting. The calculator will not save data so to track data over time, please download and track on an external spreadsheet.

Understanding Calculator options

The estimates are derived from industry averages based on a comprehensive study measuring reuse activity and its impacts in NSW (available here: https://www.charitablereuse.org.au/about/policies-and-projects/nsw-epa-measuring-reuse-and-repair-in-nsw/).

Since reuse impacts, such as employment and revenue, can vary between organisations, the results presented are projections based on industry averages rather than actual values.

For NSW only outputs, the calculator assumes all items are reused, as the data is collected through point of sale, and excludes any local landfill. For NSW Plus Exports, a landfill component is added to the outputs.