This upcoming Saturday, the 17th of July,  Kenmore residents are encouraged to drop off reusable materials, such as appliances, windows and doors at a Buffalo ReUse truck situated near the Kenmore municipal building at Delaware Avenue and Delaware Road.  It should also be noted that all donations are tax deductible.

For a list of items that we accept check out the  donate material section of our website.

We are also always continuing  to add to our inventory within our tool lending library, so if you have any tools laying around, bring them on down.

For a list of  tools that we are in need of check out the  donate tool section of our tool library website.

Rather than being thrown out, the items will be taken to either our Buffalo ReUse store on Northampton Street in Buffalo, which resells high quality building materials to home owners at a low cost, or inventoried into our tool library that is located on Eaton Street.

This will be the second of five Saturday drop-offs that have been scheduled in conjunction with the Kenmore Farmers’ Market.  They will be held from 9 a.m. to noon.   Mark your calenders with the remaining three Saturdays.  Aug. 21, Sept. 18 and Oct. 16. Ours is!

By donating your materials or tools to us you are allowing us to move forward with our mission.  The money generated from the store’s sales helps fund some of our other programs, including the community gardens and our deconstruction and salvaging teams.

On Saturday April 10, 2010 the City of Buffalo will hold its annual bicycle auction in its garage at 74 Franklin Street.  The auction will start at 9am and will run till the bikes run out, which is usually around 1pm.  This annual tradition is open to the public.  Anyone can get a new ride from anywhere from $1 to $100, with a lot of the bikes selling for under $10.  So come out and see what you can get. 

I know we will be there looking for tandems or trikes.  If anoyone has any leads towards obtaining these please contact us with the inside source.

The auction has been taking place for over twenty year and has been made possible compliments to the bikes that have been marked as unclaimed, lost, stolen, etc.  It’s a cash only purchase event with no receipts issued.  Once the bike is sold, the new owner can pick it up and ride it off the lot, just like a new car!

All the proceeds that are raised go towards a general city fund.  For more information you can check out the Buffalo Police Department’s website or call 851-4567.

Just in case you didn’t catch the last blog about garden workdays, they are beginning next week!!!

Excited? So are we. To show you just how excited we are, we are going to be kicking the season off with a fun and eventful workday that will help us get the ball rolling. On Wednesday 3/24, we will be constructing cold frames to keep our young and tender plants comfy as we harden them off before freeing them out into the cruel and cold world outside of our basement. Come spend some time with us and lend a hand. We’ll meet at the store at 2pm (every Wednesday), and will wrap up our projects by 5pm at the latest.

Cold frames are an excellent way to extend the growing season (both forward and backward), and are very popular and easy to use. Many of the cold frames that we build will make their way into our gardens, and most of the rest will be available for purchase at the Store on Northampton street. There will be various shapes and sizes of cold frames available, and thus the price will vary, you can expect somewhere between $30 and $45.

We are also taking orders for custom cold frames. Prices will vary depending on dimension and materials needed, but if you have something in mind that isn’t what you see at the store, ask us.

We hope to see you on Wednesday!!!

While searching for more ways to turn recycled newspaper into seed-starting pots, I stumbled across an article about ways to ReUse old phone books (you can also use phone book pages to make pots for seed starting). I thought this was very interesting, especially considering our office got two of them last summer (since the building is a double), and we barely used either one. The ease with which one can search the internet for a business’s phone number has made these print directories almost obsolete.

Less than 16% of Americans recycle their old phone books. Become one to recycle! You can also call your local phone company and see if they have an opt-out program. OR, here are some ways to REUSE:

1. Make a booster seat for your child. Most of us probably remember sitting on a phone book to reach the dining room table better. Go a step further and cover the phone book with some cotton batting and a fabric remnant to make it even more comfortable.
2. Use them, sheet by sheet, as an alternative to paper towels. Clean windows and mirrors.
3. Next time your kid needs to papier mache something, use pages from your old phonebooks.
4. Crumple the pages into balls to use as packaging filler for delicate objects.
5. Shred the pages up and COMPOST them!!
6. Use one as a kneeling pad for when you’re working in the garden.
7. Use stacks of the pages (10 pages thick or so) to kill the grass where you want a new garden bed. Simply lay the stacks of pages over the grass (overlapping them a bit), wet them down, and cover them with mulch, shredded leaves, or straw. In a few weeks, the grass will be dead and you have a new garden bed!

The City of Buffalo has just released their 2010 schedule for the bulk trash pickups and its dated to start April 11th.  However, we to encourage you to give us a call at the ReSOURCE 716-882-2800 to schedule a pick up for the reuseable materials like cabinets, doors, toilets, sinks and stuff like that.  Get your tax deduction! Check our website for a complete list of items we’ll pickup.  (Can you help us come up with a JINGLE or viral video??)

Council District
South – April 11th
Delaware – April 18th
Lovejoy – April 25th
North – May 2nd
Niagara – May 9th
Ellicott – May 16th
Masten – May 23rd
Fillmore – June 6th
University – June 13th

Duplicate stocks available at Buffalo and Rochester.

Do you have a box of inch-long remnants of copper pipe from that kitchen remodel back in 1970? How about a couple of bent and burnt aluminum pots that just couldn’t cook one more can of cream of mushroom soup? Or how about one of my favorites; an old tire rim cut and bent into the shape of a flower? I believe the artists intentions were good but I always thought they looked like Audrey II or a body snatcher pod (If you don’t understand these references Google “little shop of Horrors” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and then see the original versions). If your basement is choked with stuff like this but your conscience tells you metal is easily recycled but you know it will cost you more in gas than the money you’d make at the scrap yard. Here is a solution that is good for your basement, the earth, and your conscience; consider donating you scrap metal to Buffalo ReUse to support:

• Employment and training for young people
• Commerce in the City of Buffalo
• Preservation of Buffalo’s heritage of materials and craftsmanship
• Diverting “waste” from dead-ending in landfills?

Seriously though, those few old bits of metal might not seem significant, however scrap metal is very useful for us as it provides a very quick and direct way to help fund our day to day operations. At about 75 cents per pound for ferrous metals (irons and steels) and about 3 dollars per pound for cuprous metals (copper, brass, bronze) it isn’t worth the average person gas and driving to recycle a few old coat hangers or faucet knobs. However at the Buffalo ReUse these small amounts of metal accumulate from many different sources and add up quickly. A truck load of metal might pay for a few days worth of diesel, or pay to repair an (all too common) engine problem, buy boxes of gloves, puncture protectors and goggles for the crew, etc…

Environmentally recycled metal is an excellent way to be greener. A piece of metal thrown away is a piece of metal that has to be replaced with new metal. The amount of energy needed to recycle metal into useful products is estimated to be nearly 1/3 of the energy to obtain it from raw materials. Metals also often require that tons of rock be mined to produce pounds of metal. The environmental costs of mining are very high, leaving enormous scars on the earth and badly poisoned waters and lands.

Of course, if you bring in interesting or useful metal items that can be  re-sold we would not scrap them.  Useful items can be re-sold in the store (Environmentally even better than metal recycling) or used to run our operations. And just like item donations, we will provide you with a tax donation form. We ask that you not bring refrigerators, propane cylinders, gas cans, entire cars or trucks, items that are less than 50% metal, or contain mercury (switches and controls). For very large loads we can pick it up with our truck by appointment. Items should be readily accessible at ground level. In any case call ahead to discuss your specific situation and see if we can use your metal.

So  if you have a set of porch railings that were bent into a pretzel when junior backed into it 1978 while learning to drive, consider the Buffalo ReUse before you put it at the curb. It will help our cause immensely.

Seen on my way from the West Side to the East Side.

Not our truck, but I’m very impressed with the load. Not the quality of product, which is marginal scrap, but the tie-downs.

I have a dream….to put together a list of places that have objects from the ReSource in them. For example, I know that Parker Hertel Sweet Shop got their front door from us, and Sweetness_7 Cafe is chock-full of cool materials from Buffalo ReUse. I would LOVE to eventually make an online map of the businesses that have used us, and maybe (no promises) give each location a Certificate of ReUse to proudly display behind their counter/over their front door/what have you.

So if you know of a commercial place that has reused building material from the ReSource in it, please let me know!! We get very excited when we see our inventory being put to good use.

AND, for anyone who has bought something from our store that is now being used in your home, please share with us as well. Take a snapshot of the handiwork you’ve done, or the creative way you’ve reused those tiles or that window, and email it to rachel {at} buffaloreuse(.)org. We would like to fill the store with pictures and stories to inspire other Western New Yorkers!

This apron tub was bought and refinished by Bill & Melanie Wolski, and look how gorgeous it turned out. They also re-used spindles, a door, a mantelpiece, and several windows in their home. Click on the tub to see our collection of pictures from their beautiful house.

We rarely get to invite volunteers on salvage runs so don’t let this one pass you by!  IF you’re not busy Saturday and have a hunkering for some careful pillaging; join us.  Here’s the details.  We’re only entering properties that we’ve been awarded “Salvage Rights” this means someone gave us permission to access the property and reclaim useable materials.  We get in, get out and resecure the property.  We look for tubs, windows, lighting, flooring, architectural features etc and bring them back to The ReSOURCE.

It’s a very good idea to bring a headlamp or a flashlight.  If you have a Buffalo ReUse tshirt or sweatshirt, please wear it so we look like we’re on the same crew (reminder: if your BR shirt isn’t dirty–you’re not wearing it right!) Wear boots or heavy soled shoes and long sleeves or layers and maybe a hat or cap because it gets dusty in vacant houses. If you have work gloves, bring them.  You do not need to bring any tools.  You can also bring dried fish, your rum flask, and some limes to deter scurvy, but we’ll probably tease you.

Be punctual! The crew will leave from The ReSOURCE, Saturday morning at 9am so you need to be here so we can outfit you with a hardhat and gloves.

If you’re available Sunday, at 10am, we’ll be working on the rear addition–mixing & pouring lots of concrete and building the frame.  If it’s raining, we’ll do some home improvement type tasks at Eaton House.