Goedzak: Because One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure

As a blogger, you come across plenty of good ideas every day. Sometimes you come across brilliant ideas. The so-called ‘Goedzak’ is such an idea.

Developed by Amsterdam-based product design agency Waarmakers, the Goedzak is a special garbage bag for items that are still usable. ‘Goedzak’ means both ‘good bag’ and ‘do-gooder’ in Dutch. According to designers Simon Akkaya and Maarten Heijltjes, their concept is a friendly way to give products a second chance and stimulate sustainable behavior.

“Whether it’s that purple vase your sister-in-law got you, or that particular coffee-pad-loving coffee machine (you know the one) that’s been lying in the basement for ages; everybody owns items that are no longer of value to them. Every now and then we throw out these items, while they still might be of value and/or useful to others. These items disappear in grey garbage bags and end up on trash piles. Goedzak offers these items a second chance.”

There’s plenty of nice items on the streets during garbage collection times — a good part of my apartment’s interior consists of furniture that I’ve found this way. The Goedzak has the ability to give special attention to the products that are still useful and invite passers-by to take them. The designers are currently looking for a Dutch municipality to roll out an experiment with the bag to see if it works. There’s only one little problem: taking stuff from the streets is considered theft in the Netherlands and therefore illegal. But still…