There are items you throw in the trash, and others you throw in recycling—but what about everything in between?
You know, things like an old pair of roller skates, overly-used bed sheets, drywall, string lights and various other household objects that are a little confusing to discard.
That’s exactly why Circular Philadelphia and The Resource Exchange decided to create resourcePhilly—the city’s first sustainability engine created to reduce the 2,300,000,000 pounds of Philadelphia waste sent to local landfills and incinerators annually.
“resourcePhilly is an important step toward making Philadelphia cleaner and greener,” says Samantha Wittchen, co-founder and Interim Executive Director of Circular Philadelphia. “Until now, there has been no comprehensive online tool like this in Philly and even our engaged members struggle to find these resources. resourcePhilly fills that gap.”
How it works: Users type in items they’d like to donate or sell and the platform provides a prioritized list of resources with links and information. Items can include garden hoses, musical instruments, Amazon mailers, bubble wrap, wine corks, batteries, and anything else that fits in the miscellaneous category. Additionally, resourcePhilly will also help users find businesses and organizations to patronize that prioritize reuse and waste minimization, sell secondhand, and offer bulk items.
For the last 10 years, the Kensington-based Resource Exchange has maintained a physical version of resourcePhilly in the front of its 6,000 sq. ft. thrift store. Currently, hundreds of customers each month turn to the hand-painted, 3-by-4-foot green and blue corkboard map (dotted with white tacks and paper guides) to find places to donate unwanted items, a release notes. The Resource Exchange maintains the database and regularly directs would-be donors to the “right place.”
“Maintaining the corkboard version of resourcePhilly is a labor of love,” adds Karyn Gerred, Executive Director of The Resource Exchange. “My team and I spend hours every month making phone calls and emails to local businesses and organizations to keep it as updated as possible. Making reuse and recycling turnkey for busy people is key to making it sustainable and scalable. By turning resourcePhilly into an online search engine, we will reach exponentially more people and truly make a dent in the 1,150,000 tons of waste that Philadelphia burns and buries every year.”
Circular Philadelphia, on the other hand, has always worked to bring together individuals, businesses, manufacturers, institutions, local government, and policymakers to keep items “in circulation” rather than out of commission as waste. Circular is most known for its Zero Waste at Home Guide, which guides people on living a more zero-waste lifestyle in the Philadelphia area.
This new website was built through an accumulation of research with hundreds of people surveyed and one-on-one interviews conducted to learn more about the challenges that Philadelphians face when it comes to this subject. As the release also describes, the organization will continue to collect feedback from users and make adjustments to the platform. Businesses and organizations will be able to update their own information, greatly reducing the staff time needed to maintain the database.
This website is one of the first of its kinds in the country, and its said to save more energy than old-school recycling does.
“Circularity is environmental justice,” Wittchen continued. “The Chester incinerator drives higher asthma and pollution rates in an already under resourced population. By reducing waste and encouraging environmentally-friendly practices, resourcePhilly aims to break this unjust cycle that our current disposal systems create.”
To learn more about resourcePhilly, visitresourcephilly.org
