Current ideas about sustainability, modernity and creativity are crossing paths in increasingly innovative ways. This sustainably creative spirit has given rise to organizations and companies that are making it their mission to champion one or all of the three R’s – reduce, reuse and recycle – in creative business models that have the power to attract customers and participants from all industries and walks of life.
One such company is repurposedMATERIALS, which gathers used materials before they hit the landfill for sale to customers who can give those materials a second life in a new industry.
repurposedMATERIALS Founder and President Damon Carson defines its namesake term, repurposed materials, as byproducts and waste that have value “as is” to a second, unrelated industry. The company believes that we’ve come a long with since recycling was introduced for curbside pickup, and that repurposing on a larger platform will take sustainable materials management to a new level. Recycling requires huge amounts of logistics and energy – chipping, shredding, grinding, melting – to convert a waste stream into a usable feedstock to manufacture a brand new product. repurposedMATERIALS contends that “reuse” (the action of using something again or more than once) and its cousin, “repurpose” (to adapt for use in a different purpose) is second only to “reduce” in the waste hierarchy.
Examples of repurposing? It’s taking a large military cargo parachute that the Army used to drop tanks out of an airplane in a 1st life, and repurposing it into a backyard/park shade canopy. It is taking an old mining conveyor belt and repurposing it as flooring in a garage or exercise room. It is taking an obsolete ski lift cable and giving it a second life as hand railing in a luxury condo building.
In addition to diverting hundreds of thousands of pounds from landfills, customers that purchase these used materials can save 50-75% over buying new, purpose-built products.
repurposedMATERIALS customers include a colorful lineup of companies, governmental entities, and organizations in a seemingly endless number of industries – the US Army, Denver Broncos, the City of Chicago, Nestles, Union Pacific Railroad, Oklahoma State University, Purina, U.S. National Forest Service, Campbell’s Soup, the State of Wyoming, and Paramount Pictures, to name a few.
With yards in Denver, Chicago and Atlanta, and two more locations on the way, repurposedMATERIALS holds that it is the only company in the country whose entire product line is made of “repurposed” items. The products it carries are just as diverse as its customer list. Online at www.repurposedmaterialsinc.com, customers can browse through inventory containing everything from containers, fabric, rubber, wood, hose and cord to steel, plastic, insulation, paint, concrete and pipe. Each product page includes pricing, the condition the product is in, the yard the product is located at, and repurposing ideas.
Working with companies like repurposedMATERIALS often calls for an architect or designer who is willing to seek out uncommon solutions to seemingly straightforward design needs. While it’s understandable that design firms work with preferred companies that they’ve worked with before and trust, the budgetary savings achievable with repurposing materials is incentive enough.
Why wouldn’t a designer do the research and put his/her creative skills to use by incorporating repurposed materials into a project? Repurposed materials can free up chunks of a designer’s budget, enabling them to try something spectacular somewhere else in the space.
