From NET+POSITIVE Education, a hands-on opportunity to learn how to make a GREEN ROOF!
Taught by industry-professional Atom Cianfarani, Co-Author of DIY Guide to Green Roofing
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Photo by Mike McCaffry via flickr
We’re calling on our ReUse Explorers to spot curbside mirrors and grab them for us. We’ve found you can’t hesitate, you need to pull over quickly & safely and load up with free mirror!
We’ll take pretty much anything, but if the glass is broken, only take it if the pieces are big and you can handle the sharp edges safely. The older and funkier the better – shiny, smooth, unblemished mirrors kind of don’t fit in with the Rusted Grain reclaimed look.
If you can’t grab the mirror, send a text to the ReUse Action Hotline at 716-949-0900 with the location of your find. You can also email us at info {at} reuseaction(.)com or add a post or send a message on our Facebook page. If you can’t bring the mirror over to Northampton Street, just give us a call and we’ll pick it up.
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Zam Bikes, custom, sustainable, bamboo bikes from Zambia!
So, a month or two ago, we posted about our vision for an artisan center on the East Side of Buffalo. Well we’re excited that our vision is beginning to take shape…we have lots of ideas and lots of hopes for our humble little warehouse located at 298 Northampton Street.
Over the next few weeks, we’re gonna share with you some ideas we’ve had about “dream tenants” . . . entrepreneurs, artists, artisans . . . who provide a service to the community and/or are interested in a community art space. The focus is really on creating and doing.
So far,we have Rusted Grain, who have set up shop and are creating their unique line of reclaimed tables, cabinets, and accoutrements for your home or business; ReUse Action also bases its green demolition activities out of the space and will soon be launching a community repair and window restoration service location for the community; we are in conversations with a glass blower too . . . which would be super cool! But it’s a wide open world out there and we want to create and support a community of doers.
This is a grassroots effort, so interested artisans and entrepreneurs should have a true desire to be part of a community-focused effort and be willing to contribute to the creation and development of the space. If you have an idea or you know of an individual who may want to learn more, have them call Michael at 716-949-0900 or Megan at 716-912-5529 or contact us via our contact page.
So on with the show . . .
So last week, I took a whirlwind tour to Alabama . . . a long story, but during the trip, I had the immense pleasure of visiting an organization called HERO, located in Greensboro, hale County, Alabama. WOW! Awesome folks. But they’ve initiated a venture called HERO bikes, where they build bicycle frames from locally harvested BAMBOO! and they train young adults in the technical aspects of bicycle repair, maintenance, and fabrication. Anyway, I was inspired. I started to think about the folks in our neighborhood that ride bikes and the lack of services for bike riders on the East Side.
And then today, I had friends in from Ithaca who attended Ani’s show last night at Babeville, and Greg was sharing his experiences working at RIBS (Recycle Ithaca’s Bicycles). They offer DIY support for folks to come in and make repairs to their bikes, they provide bike services, and they sell recycle and repurposed bicycles. Sounds, like a great effort! Similar to the Blackstone Bicycle Works on the South Side of Chicago, which offers training and education for young adults in bicycle repair and maintenance. And of course, no discussion of community bicycling is complete without a tip to the hat to our very own GO Buffalo Bicycle Workshops.
In doing some research on community bicycle programs, I came across Zambikes, an effort to offer training and economic opportunity through bicycle design and fabrication in Zambia. In Zambia unemployment exceeds 50% and their customized bamboo bikes are now being exported all over the world.
So we get a bit dreamy-eyed thinking about a bike mechanic or bike shop operating out of the center. Do you know of someone that has the skillz? Who is looking to incubate a new bike business? Who wants to be part of a new community-focused effort incubating on Northampton Street?
Onward,
The folks at 298 Northampton Street
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We’re committed to creating local and green jobs for the Buffalo community. More importantly, we feel these jobs should leverage the waste in our society to create opportunity. We’re interested in a critical analysis of our economy to identify wasteful business practices that damage our communities and our environment, and opportunities that exist for new ventures. We’re determined to find solutions and to implement alternatives that put people to work.
As we look at the world, we see so much that has failed, so much that pollutes and wastes, and so much that just doesn’t make sense. We often ask, “Isn’t there a better way? Has anyone tried something differently and made it work? Can’t we do the right thing for workers, the environment, and communities AND create a modest profit? There are ways and the answers can be found through collectively innovating and acting?”
We value our role as mentors for young people in our community. We encourage our mentors to not only be good employees with a diligent work ethic and strong skills, but also good people driven by their own interests and passions and committed to service.
We’re interested in creating and promoting a dialogue. We’re committed to building the reuse industry so that others can benefit from the opportunity of material reuse. We advise and consult with not for profits and municipalities, community leaders and businesses to ensure opportunity is harvested from unwanted structures. Our blog communicates ideas and information we feel is critical to educating the community, promoting more responsible behavior, and expanding the industry of material recycling.
Our work as green demolition contractors was born out of the wastefulness of traditional demolition. We shared a growing concern about the material filling our local landfills; the growing environmental destruction that accompanies the logging industry, the source of “new lumber”; and the behavior of many businesses that fails to recognize environmental clean-up and responsibility as a cost of doing business.
We value relationships. We intend, through our work, to bring people together. We focus our work in the MidCity neighborhood, where we plan to be very active with rehabilitation and creative use of green spaces. We believe through collaboration, creativity, and hard work we can rebuild, reinvent, and reimagine a future for our community and create a net positive ecological, economic, and social benefit for everyone who lives and works in the Mid City community.
All photos by Caesandra Seawell, except for photo number 4 (Tree Planting) by Natalie Marino. All Rights Reserved.
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We’ve finally admitted…it’s getting cold. Working outside all day or in a cold warehouse, we admit that the ReUse Action t-shirts simply do not cut it anymore. We need something WARM and COZY!
Voila! Our desire for warm clothes has been heard. Say hello to the the super-cool ReUse Action HOODIES! Doesn’t it just look so fabulous on our friend Nora? Email Michael {at} reuseaction(.)com to put in a request for a hoodie today! $15/sweatshirt, please specify size (Medium fits most small to medium size gals, so men…order L or XL…)
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locally salvaged wood, and proud of it!
As the summer ends and winter approaches, we finished the final touches on the waterfront food kiosk “Clinton’s Dish.” We boarded her up for the season, installing beautiful storm shutters that were made in the Rusted Grain woodshop at Action HQ! Like the siding, our materials for the storms were locally sourced: yellow pine flooring that was salvaged by the Green Demo Team during a green demolition project taking place in South Buffalo. The aged boards were refaced and stained, becoming an awesome addition to the local flavor of Buffalo’s newest waterfront building. Speaking of flavor…can’t wait ’til they come off in the spring and we can go down to the waterfront again for some ice cream!
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As usual, the Green Demo Team brought in some pretty neat stuff this past week. The crew is working on a barn deconstruction in Lockport and all voted that the old wagon that was salvaged was by far the best find. The barn doors were awesome, the antique hooks beautiful, but the wagon surpasses all because it is so simply built, yet elegant and strong. Thought we’d share it with our readers to enjoy!
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The Green Demo crew brings more and more reclaimed materials into Action HQ everyday. The question becomes, what will we do with it? Do we reuse it as is? Can we salvage the good parts? Or better yet, lets get our creative juices flowing and make new items from old stuff!
We are now selling our creations online. Included in every purchase is a short introduction to the woodworker or artist who made the piece along with a story of where the material used came from. Below are some first examples, but keep your eyes peeled and check the website in the future for more awesome stuff to come!
Baseboard flower vases: made of wooden baseboard, removed from a green demolition site on Edgewood Ave in South Buffalo. Perfect for single flower center pieces. These were featured at the CCFA-WNY fundraiser Wine Down Wednesday and are soon to make an appearance at Allison and Kevin’s wedding in October! $15 each, $12 when you buy more than 10.
Coat Racks: Made from “Uncle Charlie’s old shelves”, these coat racks use painted pine, hemlock joists turned into pegs and buttons found on a demolition site in South Buffalo. Quick, easy, yet so crafty! $20/coat rack
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We are now selling goods made in our woodshop at the Roswell farmer’s market. Wednesdays 11-2pm, in the park off of Oak St. It’s a small market, but with so much diversity of goods! Come check us out and chat with us about our green demo services and our fully stocked woodshop.
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Kids are reading less, people use e-books more, and libraries are scrambling for what to do about it. One common solution is to close libraries and get rid of books (sound familiar Buffalo?). Instead, one library in British Columbia is changing the way we think about libraries; they have a collection of “living books,” local experts, who have volunteered to share their knowledge on specific subjects. Want to know about the history of the circus? Want to learn a certain painting technique? “Check out” a living expert that will meet with you to discuss your topic of interest! Libraries remain a center of knowledge but are recognizing living people can be just as an effective source of knowledge as books and encyclopedias.
That people are a great resource and a way to learn new skills is certainly proved true in the building trades. Through our apprenticeships and workshops, we hope to become those “living books” on reuse that are a resource to WNY and the country.
Speaking of workshops, we will be having a free workshop in two weeks:
Make your own bottle opener
Sept 14th, 7-9pm
@ Action HQ (1212 Jefferson)
Use all reclaimed materials and some old nails and hone your skills on the band saw. We are using people knowledge to share skills…would you like to check us out of the reuse library?
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