Celebrating 1st Year at our New Location!

This July, the Reuse Centre celebrates its one year anniversary since moving to its new location from the old downtown store. This was a big move for the store, and a much welcomed improvement. The new store is much larger, with plenty of natural light coming from the south facing windows, which brightens the whole building and creates a pleasant shopping experience for our customers. Compared to the downtown store, the new location also offers much more parking space for customers shopping or donating items.

We have received lots of positive feedback from staff, volunteers and especially customers since relocating. When accepting donations, the staff finds the larger area much more convenient to sort items and organize stock. Volunteers also appreciate the new space which has more room for sorting and more shelf space for the bins.
Over the past year, the customers have enthusiastically welcomed us into the new area. They have expressed great satisfaction with the new space, parking lot, and the Reuse Centre's expanded list of accepted items. Being situated in a residential, but still relatively central, area of the city, the centre is able to expand its goal of community outreach by being able to connect with more citizens.

In the future, we also hope to host in-house reuse workshops, programs, and reuse-related community functions within the new boardroom space. The Centre also hopes to be able to promote reuse in the city through building and developing partnerships in the community.

Our customer visits and amount of donated materials have increased since the move. Each month, we have been accepting about 19.5 tons of donations compared to about 12 tonnes per month downtown. At the downtown location, there were 9,062 total customers from January to June, while this year there has been 13,939 customers at the new location (Figure 1). In 2014, the Reuse Centre received about 69 tons of donations from January to June, compared to about 116 tons we have received so far this year (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Graphs showing the increase in the number of customers and the weight of donations coming to the Reuse Centre from 2014 to 2015 for the months of January to June.

If you have not been to our new location yet, be sure to stop by and see the new space for yourself. We have plenty to offer for your next reuse adventure!

- Lynnette (Staff)

Grand Opening Celebration!

The Reuse Centre recently celebrated its move to a bigger, better, brighter location! Our new location is at 6835 83rd Street, just off of Argyll Road. We opened our new doors in early July to record-breaking drop offs and donations. In July alone, Edmontonians donated 22.5 tonnes of reusable items! 

The doors have just been opened!

On July 22nd, we held our Grand Opening Celebration. People began lining up around 11:30 a.m. and from the moment we opened the doors, we had a full house. Over the course of the day, 1.9 tonnes of reusable material was donated, and 1.7 tonnes were purchased! We were thrilled to see that so many people had come to celebrate with us. There were many long-time customers and friends of the Reuse Centre, plus a whole lot of new faces. 

Ringing up some new customers

It was an amazing day, and we'd like to extend our thanks to all of the volunteers, customers, and City of Edmonton staff who've supported us and helped us make the Reuse Centre such a success. We could not have come this far or had such a fantastic event without your help.

Councillor Mike Nickel and WMS Branch Manger Leo Girard
weighing in some office supplies

We would also like to extend our thanks to Councillor Mike Nickel, who came along to celebrate with us. He took a turn in our drop off area, along with Waste Management Services Branch Manager, Leo Girard.

Councillor Nickel, Reuse Centre staffer Karen, and WMS
Branch Manager Leo Girard

Councillor Nickel went above and beyond the call of duty for Reuse Centre customers, bringing carts to them in the parking lot and also helping some to unload their vehicles.

He and Leo had a great time accepting donations, sorting through reusable items, and, of course, being bossed around by Reuse Centre Operator, Karen.

Reuse Crafter volunteer Andrea helps
a little customer get started

Throughout the day we had an amazing contingent of volunteers who helped make this event a success. They gave tours, greeted patrons at the door, answered questions in the volunteer room while they diligently sorted out donated items, and even ran our kids' crafting workshop.

Local duo Bardic Form provided live music throughout the whole event. Thank you for really livening up the atmosphere of our party!

Linda Bodo, upcycle artist extraordinaire, was on hand to teach an adult reuse workshop. She taught patrons how to make amazing bird feeders out of plastic cd cases. 

Linda also brought several examples of reuse projects that she has created. Visit her website, absolutebodo.com, for some amazing reuse tips and tricks, as well as fantastic project ideas. 

Linda Bodo's workshop gets
underway

Workshop participants making
birdfeeders

We were also thrilled to host some of Edmonton's local news crews. Check out these clips from Global and CBC news.

Thank you, Edmonton, for showing us such a warm welcome to our new location!

Please visit us soon, at 6835 83rd Street, just off of Argyll Road.