In June 2026, Philadelphia’s current solid waste and recycling contracts are set to end, and a coalition of policymakers, industry professionals and advocates hope to use the contract expiration as a lever to fundamentally shift the City’s waste management practices toward circular approaches that include reuse, recycling, repair and composting — while addressing environmental justice
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Philly AIDS Thrift has all kinds of patrons: teachers, tourists, college students and on occasion, celebrities like singer Miley Cyrus and Eagles players. As manager and longtime employee Adam Proctor puts it, the nonprofit thrift store attracts “every kind of person ever.” Located at 710 South 5th Street, Philly AIDS Thrift has an eclectic, artsy
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When Moth Snow was in college, they would spend afternoons scouring thrift stores for discarded sartorial gems. Perusing the racks, they’d perform a kind of tactile divination, feeling the hem of a sweater or collar of a blouse, then guessing its fiber content. Was it cotton? Wool? A polyester blend? Their fingertips would seek answers,
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Do you know what it’s made of? Where it came from? Who stitched it together? Go ahead and cheat. Check the label. That will get you part of the way there: a list of materials and a country, but much of the story will remain a mystery. That little tag won’t tell you about the
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The amount of electronic waste the U.S. produces — 6.9 million tons annually — is an overwhelming problem, but for Steve Figgatt, founder of the e-waste recycling business Sycamore International, it’s also a nearly limitless opportunity. Thirteen years ago Figgatt, 36, started the West Grove-based business — which now employs 73 people and processes 40,000
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Four years ago, Re:Dish CEO and founder, Caroline Vanderlip, set out with the goal of reducing the amount of plastic waste in the United States. The U.S. alone has produced 8.3 metric tons of plastics since 2018 and production is expected to triple by 2050, a report compiled by nonprofit ocean conservation organization Oceana shows.
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Tim Eads pulls out his box cutter, slices a panel from a flattened cardboard box and then feeds it through a tabletop perforator. What goes in as waste comes out as packing material. What began as a way to source more-sustainable packing material for Tuft the World, the rug tufting company Eads owns with his
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Sitting by the front door at my house are a couple bags of old toys. The next time one of us plans to be near the Goodwill, we’ll drop them off. A few weeks ago I bought our oldest (11) a new/used bike from Neighborhood Bike Works and dropped off two outgrown ones that had
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My boomer dad doesn’t do social media. So when he wanted to unload a decades-old desk ill-suited to his new condo, he went old school: He posted a flier on the bulletin board at MOM’s Organic Market in Bryn Mawr. “Free to a good home: pine desk in good condition.” He included the desk’s dimensions,
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In Johanna Dunn’s Belmont Hills studio, rich upholsteries abound: lush reds, animal prints and houndstooth mingle with florals, tweeds and blackout curtains. Her slow-fashion company, City Totes, specializes in artistically crafted bags made from reclaimed fabrics. Dunn, 55, loves finding materials destined for the trash and designing a new life for them. Over the past
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