Have you ever picked up an item in your house or at your office and thought, “I clearly don’t need this anymore, but I can’t bring myself to just throw it away, and I don’t even know if it’s something that can be recycled?” Recent surveys in Michigan’s Great Southwest by one of the founders of the Sustainable Business Forum prove that you are decidedly not alone, and that has resulted in her creation of Trash to Treasure. For now, it’s all online in the form of a Facebook swap-shop of sorts. More on that in a moment, but first — how it all got started.
Becky Kliss, President of Green Connection, was a founding member of the Michigan’s Great Southwest Sustainable Business Forum. Last year, she started on a kick for making art out of broken items or recycle things. She was literally making art of upcycled products, a trend popular among current day artists. As she was working at getting pieces together to make her “creations,” she found it to be considerably more time-consuming that she had expected. It wasn’t as easy as she thought to gather the pieces or weird items necessary among the recycle bins of the region.
Becky admits that the hunt can be a rewarding part of the process, she simply didn’t have the patience to finish a project when that much time was involved. So, she contacted Berrien County recycling queen Jill Adams at the county’s environmental unit to determine if there was a source for odd-ball items, but learned that unless the pieces Becky was looking for matched the success model of co-mingled recycling bin drop offs or the types of electronic pieces gathered up at hazardous waste collection events, there was no “go to” source for what Becky — and frankly a number of others who ask Jill all the time — was looking for.
Still searching for sourcing, conversations were launched and interest was piqued sufficiently to establish a meeting for further discussion. Becky was relieved to learn she wasn’t just some crazy person with an offbeat hobby question — others wanted answers too. A small confederation gathered for coffee at the Mason Jar in the Benton Harbor Arts District. Half of those at the meeting stemmed from the creative side and the other half from the waste stream side of the house.
The ensuing conversations proved so entertaining that a solid need was realized for a finite connection between artist/creator and Cool Junk provider, as coined by the Krasl’s Julia Gourley. By the second meeting, even more enthralling conversations were sparked, plied with great stories from junk dealers about the things they find in their own piles. Guys like Jerry Looney who owns and operates L&S Recycling and Jim Grandholm who owns Green Earth Electronics regaled the idea brokers with story after story about the items that land on their doorsteps that often have only the slightest of malfunction and can be quickly repaired and pressed into action for a longer useful life.
Looney, by way of example, says every spring he gets “No less than five lawnmowers that may simply need a new spark plug or fresh oil and they work just fine.” Unfortunately, many people find it easier to go and buy new, because of the lack of a skill set to repair things.
That’s when Marcy Hamilton of the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission shared word of a movement in Amsterdam called RepairCafe. In fact, there are now reportedly more than 1,300 Repair Cafes worldwide. Another member of the focus group, Louise Valentin shared her concerns regarding the increasing difficulty in finding tradesmen and women who perform knife sharpening, shoe repair, vacuum repairs and clothing adjustment and repair.
Long story short — the group settled on creation of a local initiative called Trash to Treasure — at the moment a Facebook enterprise, or network, that acts largely as a matchmaker.
Ken Ankli of the New Territory Arts Association welcomed the Trash to Treasure into a space at the last two quarterly Art Hop events in the Benton Harbor Arts District. Just last week Trash to Treasure hosted a booth and expanded the space to allow kids to choose odd pieces from broken toys, wooden blocks, wine corks, cassette tapes, bottle caps and more to sit and create their own upcycle pieces of art. They also offered items that creative people could purchase including things like barn wood and cigar boxes to create items that aren’t generally looked at as “art.”
Over the past six months, a survey was offered to anyone interested enough and willing to take part in. The survey provided an eclectic list of some 100 items ranging from miscellaneous metals, plastic, and wood pieces to ‘art supply type items’ that people taking the survey could check off their interest in.
Survey respondents were asked to catalog each item as either something they had in hand but wanted to give up, or something they were actually in search or or wanted to be able to acquire. The goal of the exercise was to “create a match” between the “HAVES” on the item list with the “WANTS” on the list. In so doing, the goal was to offer matchmaking for those interested in trading, buying, or giving up free of charge the items being sought by those looking to create.
Beautifully, the experiment proved that such matches actually exist. By way of example there were people who said they were in search of musical instrument parts and those who had such parts. The same went for those with things like old keys, beach glass, jewelry parts, crates, window screens, broken dishes, metal & wood scraps, and on and on.
The focus group worked hard to determine the best way to create a database where all these wants & haves could be posted & matched to run on its own — however, without seed money to hire a tech person to create such a database, the group simply fell short of the resources to create such a database and maintain it — they were, after all, simply volunteers in search of solutions.
Instead, they opted to fine tune their Facebook page with clear cut definitions and rules on how to use it, not unlike a Garage Sale site or other “For Sale” site.
Becky tells me that Trash to Treasure has even been requested to provide a building where items can be dropped off for this type of initiative, however she says, “At this time the group will continue with the Facebook page and an email address: trash2treasurenetwork@gmail.com for those that don’t utilize Facebook.
Anyone who wants to join in on any future meetings or events or shares this passion, is welcomed to be a part of the “Cool Junk” initiative, and can reach the group at that e-mail for future ventures.
Here’s a direct link to the group’s Facebook page:
