NYC Home to Re-Use Center

Astoria Residents Reclaiming Our World (ARROW), a Queens-based nonprofit environmental group, will open what it is calling “the first building materials reuse center in New York City” in March in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens.

A launch event is taking place Friday evening, March 7, and will include brief remarks by the ARROW staff, a tour of the facility and a reception with live music and refreshments.

ARROW’s leaders say the re-use center is based on models up and running in other cities across the country such as The ReBuilding Center in Portland, Ore., and Urban Ore in Berkeley, Calif.

ARROW’s center will offer building materials at discount prices for the individual homeowner and small contractor markets. Fixtures, doors, sinks, shelving, kitchen cabinets, sheetrock, lock sets and many other items will be offered for sale secondhand.

The center’s inventory will be drawn from materials donated by New York residents and businesses. ARROW says it will accept bathroom fixtures, cabinets, light fixtures, metal and wood doors, windows, furniture, kitchen fixtures and small quantities of dimensional lumber. The group is already receiving materials at the site at 51-02 21st Street at Borden Ave. in Long Island City. Donations are accepted during limited hours and are tax deductible.

The start-up of ARROW’s new reuse center was funded through Waste-Free NYC, a waste prevention program managed by INFORM and funded by the City Council through the Department of Sanitation of New York City (www.informinc.org). INFORM is a New York City nonprofit environmental research organization based in Manhattan.

“The Reuse Center is a win-win proposition for the environment and for New York City,” says Nicole Tai, ARROW’s Reuse Center Project Manager. “It will not only save New York City money on waste exportation costs, it will also save all the valuable BTUs that went into making the materials in the first place,” she adds. “By collecting and selling these materials, ARROW is showing New York that we can rethink the way we look at ‘trash.’ We can develop new local economies that will create jobs and at the same time help clean up our neighborhoods and the environment.”

Tai notes that the San Francisco Bay Area alone supports over five profitable reuse centers – some of which she says net over $1.5 million in sales per year. The centers supply “green” (sustainable-practice) and/or economical builders with materials, and act as clearinghouses for a burgeoning deconstruction industry, she says.

The center’s officers hope it will help spur interest in deconstruction in New York City. An established reuse center can help close the recycling loop, they say.

“For us, this is a great way to get back to our recycling roots,” says ARROW Treasurer Chris Tokar. “ARROW started out as a voluntary recycling program in 1989 before there was city curbside recycling, and we’re excited to be offering a new resource for New York residents.”