As an anthropological study of a self-selected slice of Pittsburgh – the 450 people who registered to donate their unwanted items at the annual ReuseFest on Saturday – we seem to be a crafty, golf-loving people who enjoy collecting office binders, window screens and punch mitts.
Hundreds of pounds of this kind of trash turned to treasure somewhere between the line of cars that waited to unload their unwanted goods in North Park and the trucks brought by 10 local nonprofits to accept it.
Ripped out kitchen cabinets discarded by a man who’d remodeled his daughter’s kitchen were scooped up by Construction Junction, an organization that repurposes building materials.
A Crockpot found a home with Habitat for Humanity.
“Hockey pads!” cried Kaceme Djellouli, unzipping a green duffel bag. “The kids are going to love these.”
Mr. Djellouli is director of operations at The Education Partnership, a nonprofit that provides school supplies to teachers and students in low-income schools.
“That’s one of those sports that has, like, a big barrier to entry,” he said before loading the bag into this van.
He was particularly pleased to score an unopened chemistry set with 333 possible experiments (retail price $250).
ReuseFest, in its 11th year, is organized by the Pennsylvania Resources Council, an environmental organization with an emphasis on waste diversion and recycling.
Previous years’ drop-off events were such a hit that this year participants were asked to register in advance. It was a way to stress which items would be accepted and it was also a capacity issue. Without registration, thousands of people would show up, said Joshua Schuneman, collection events manager with the PRC. The organization purposely didn’t advertise the exact location of ReuseFest inside sprawling North Park to prevent well-meaning unregistered donors from showing up anyway.
“It’s a bit of organized chaos,” Mr. Schuneman said as he watched a dozen volunteers in neon vests sorting housewares from furniture on Saturday.
Behind him, Leora Flax, client services coordinator with Dress for Success, opened a shoe box with cream-colored pumps and even though she technically shouldn’t have taken them – light colors get dirty, they’re impractical – they were too cute to pass up. She put them in the trunk of a car that looked ill-suited for the volume of donations the organization was getting. Ms. Flax had no trouble imagining how she’d stuff it all in: unused underwear, a bag of accessories, hats, blazers, winter coats.
A few vehicles down, Tanner Rowe was loading his sixth bedside commode into the Brother’s Brother Foundation truck. He had already amassed half a dozen walkers, two sets of crutches, and a few wheelchairs, which are likely to end up somewhere halfway around the world.
Brothers’ Brother, where Mr. Rowe is director of operations, collects gently used medical supplies, among other things, and ships most of them internationally to high-need areas.
By the time the event ended, all nonprofit trucks were “packed to the brim,” Mr. Schuneman said.
A small trampoline that lay buried beneath a pile of other miscellanea had found a taker. Some sheets of frosted glass went into the trash bin onsite, but a black and gold Christmas wreath would no doubt find a new home.
In 2020, the last year for which PRC tallied such data, ReuseFest brought in nearly 18 tons of donations. So, in addition to turning one man’s trash into another’s treasure, 18 tons of trash did not go into area landfills.
First Published: October 16, 2022, 1:27 a.m.