One Man’s Trash: Recycled Art Supplies
13. Feb, 2009 
12 Comments 
Yesterday, Jen & I hopped on down to the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, one of the many places I reallllly should’ve frequented when I actually lived in this town.
It’s a lovely, one-of-a-kind place: a hybrid of thrift store, recycle bin, and craft depot that puts big-box stores like Michael’s to shame. Art supplies sold by artists, and at prices artists can afford? Genius. Not to mention that by putting recycled materials to good use, the Depot keeps massive amounts of junk out of landfills.
Fueled entirely by donations, this place has been providing art and school supplies to starving artists and under-funded classrooms for over 30 years.
The shop itself, a creatively cluttered storefront on Telegraph Ave, is never the same from one day to the next. Linda, the Depot’s director, points out a few items from the current displays: a mountain of stainless-steel containers that were donated because the lids are too tight for kids to easily open; a stack of tote bags, still in the plastic, left over from a medical conference; rows of pressboard folders arranged by color. The Depot is selective about the donations it accepts, picking things that are in fine shape and can be resold— but you just never know what someone will donate next.
Deeper in the store is where the true treasures are found, at least for junk artists (like me) and creative kids: bins of milk cartons, tea tins, and other great project supplies that would normally be considered garbage. There’s also a resource center for teachers featuring educational supplies of all kinds, from good paper to classroom manuals.
Linda tells me and Jen that the Depot got a negative review on Yelp recently: the reviewer said the store was full of garbage. Shaking our collective head at that reviewer’s short-sightedness, we all agree: garbage makes the best kid-art supplies!
Indeed, for local teachers in search of dirt-cheap materials, few things could be better than a giant bin full of toilet-paper rolls. The Depot’s mission is to provide under-funded educators with the materials they need to keep their classrooms going. Teachers, art instructors, camp counselors and scout leaders all get materials at a 10% discount; ongoing programs with the Oakland Museum and the Girl Scouts help keep those organizations flush with craft supplies.
While there are other, bigger reuse retailers in this town (think Urban Ore), the Depot’s special attention to teachers’ needs has made them an important part of the East Bay community. They blazed the trail 30 years ago as the first local business to focus on reused materials for arts & crafts, but these days you can probably find a similar store in your own backyard.
Here’s a few links to get you started:
- Urban Ore, recycling mecca in Berkeley
- Art From Scrap, creative reuse in Santa Barbara
- S.C.R.A.P. in San Francisco
- M.E.C.C.A. in Eugene, OR
- SCRAP in Portland
- Resource Center in Chicago
- I Love Schools – request donations or give your used materials directly to classrooms
- Creative Reuse links from the East Bay Depot
- Reuse links from CA Integrated Waste Management
- EcoLiteracy links: great ideas for teachers
And here are some more photos from the Depot.
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You gave me an idea! Thanks for posting.
Cool store! I am on a search of stores like this in my place. I really enjoy visiting free markets, thrifts, and the like. You can see a lot of great finds at a very cheap price. I also like buying things that have a tint of imperfection brought about by time. It’s cool to buy second-hand pieces. They’re simply beautiful.
Thanks for compiling this list. I’ve been aware of several for a while now, but was pleased to find out about some more. I’m toying with the idea of lobbying the City of Austin (TX) to emulate the SF programs. We need to have something like that in this town. How cool would it be to be a resident artist at the dump!!
I love seeing all the ways art and recycling can intersect!
Wonderful ideas! Have you heard of one these stores in the northeast?
thanks.
The Boston Childrens’ Museum had a recycling center the last time I went, but it’s been a while. Also the Town Dump in Bourne, MA (on Cape Cod) has a place called Dorothy’s, which is just a garage type building where any TOWN RESIDENTS can bring in or take out absolutely anything! I have seen baby carriages, office chairs, recliners, microwave, several TVs, VCRs and DVD players, books, pots and pans, curtains, halloween costumes, Christmas decorations, and much much more. All were in good shape and in working order.
Awesome, thanks for the tips! Sounds like it’s time for me to update this post with new info and more links.
Can we add my web site. I collect and reuse used pens of every kind for my Mercedes Pens Art Car covered in 10,000 pens and other pen projects. I love Urban Ore, that’s were I got my hard hat and covered it with pens as well.