creative reuse warehouse

This former Resource Center program collected overruns, rejects, and by‑products that local businesses and industry treated as waste, and then made the materials available as educational and artistic resources for creative reuse and design for art projects. 

Our Creative Reuse Warehouses, first in the Maxwell Street neighborhood in the early 1990s and then in the Riverdale neighborhood until the late 2010s, donated and resold these materials to teachers, artists, and anyone else who might see the value in things otherwise overlooked. See YouTube video to the right recorded in 2017 showcasing our Riverdale Creative Reuse Warehouse at its best!

All materials were sold at an extremely low price -- you choose what you want to buy, and pay what you think is fair -- and the funds were used to sustain the program.

Now, we are grateful for the spin-offs Creative Chicago Reuse Exchange at 2124 W. 82nd Place and The Wasteshed at 1754 N. Kimball, Chicago and 1245 Hartrey Ave, Evanston.

In addition, there are many resale shops around Chicago along with building/appliance reuse stores such as Habitat for Humanity's ReStore Chicago.  Don't forget about Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and eBay for free and low-cost used items.  In addition, the organization Freecycle: freecycle.org is a grassroots and nonprofit movement of people who are giving and getting stuff for free in their own towns... reusing and keeping good stuff out of landfills with free membership.