More than a decade ago, while working as a scenic painter for film and theater, Karyn Gerred would often wonder: How can we get rid of all this stuff?

Productions produce a lot of waste. Costumes get used, then junked. There’s leftover paint, lumber, furniture, accessories and loads more building materials from sets. Gerred and her colleagues wanted to recycle or donate all these things for reuse, but didn’t know how.

So, she took matters into her own hands and compiled a list of vendors who recycle or reuse production leftovers. But there were still things she couldn’t get rid of — and things people outside her industry wanted to get rid of, too. Everyone seemed to have the same problem.

So, in 2009, she launched The Resource Exchange, a nonprofit store in Olde Kensington that diverts hard-to-recycle creative resources from the waste stream. People donate paints, lumber, hardware, textiles, frames, beads, sewing patterns, and artists, educators, builders and all manner of makers buy them. Since the Exchange doesn’t accept everything — no electronics or batteries, for examples — Gerred installed a corkboard map of local spots that recycle or reuse everything from roller skates and musical instruments to bubble wrap and wine corks. She and her staff added places that repair things too.

It was a great resource, but you had to physically go to the store to use it — and make yet another trip to actually recycle or repair your stuff. People would show up at “our front door,” Gerred says, and “they’re like, where do I take this half-used thing of paint? or, what do I do with a myriad of different kinds of things?”

They put the map on the store’s website, but it wasn’t searchable. That is, until now.

The Resource Exchange and nonprofit partner Circular Philadelphia have just launched resourcePhilly, a free search engine that helps people find places to recycle, reuse or repair items that they might otherwise toss in the trash or (or mistakenly recycle). It’s a one-stop shop for the opposite of shopping — for getting rid of stuff.

Building a sustainability search engine

Samantha Wittchen, co-founder and interim executive director of Circular Philadelphia, has long dreamed of a sustainability search engine that tells people where to take their used goods for repair, donation or recycling. The idea came to her in the late aughts while volunteering with RecycleNOW Philadelphia.

Wittchen (The Citizen’s 2024 Rad Innovator of the Year) knew about The Resource Exchange’s map. Last year, when Circular Philadelphia had the opportunity to apply for a grant, she reached out to see if they could team up. They did, won it in December 2024, and hired the software company Urality to create the site.

Urality based the site’s design on Circular Philadelphia and Resource Exchange customer surveys, but also the Center’s physical corkboard. They found most people wanted a simple, all-in-one resource that was upfront about laying out requirements for recycling or donating.

On resourcePhilly, you can search by action — donate, recycle or repair their item — and by material — glass, textiles, electronics, etc. The site’s fun to explore and educational, with features about donating versus recycling, thrifting and refilling. Its results are entirely local — and thoroughly vetted.

“If you were to just go to Google and say you wanted to donate something, it’s going to give you a ton of places … maybe places that aren’t doing the thing they say they’re going to do with it,” Wittchen says. “It’s not necessarily supporting this region and this economy.”

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things resourcePhilly can help you get rid of:

• • Personal care items (old contact lenses, empty shampoo bottles, etc.)
  • Books
  • Children’s toys and sports equipment
  • Garden and lawn care items
  • Tools
  • Large appliances
  • Clothing
  • Office supplies
  • Electronics

Keeping waste out of landfills and incinerators

By sheer coincidence, the site launched right before AFSCME District Council 33, which includes 1,000 sanitation workers, went on strike. For more than a week, trash piled up in homes, alleyways, sidewalks and streets, causing Philadelphians who typically might not think twice about the amount of waste they create to face the dirty truth.

Our city produces more than 1.5 million tons of trash a year — about one ton per resident. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the U.S. is the world leader when it comes to per capita garbage production. At last count, we created 292 million tons of “municipal solid waste” per year — and that was in 2018, pre-pandemic, pre-Amazon dominance.

Here in Philly, we’ve long known we have a waste problem. Mayor Parker made “clean and green” her campaign slogan for good reason. Will the Mayor’s relatively new Office of Clean and Green Initiatives put any muscle behind resourcePhilly? They’d be smart to.

On the other hand, Wittchen and Gerred are doing more than fine on their own: They’re already planning to survey the site’s users about the tool’s efficacy — whether it gives them the info they need, and compels them to act.

The truth is, we’ll all have to work together — to be “one Philly united,” if you will —to make our city cleaner, greener, and healthier. Gerred and Wittchen think we’re on the right track.

“If we are able to get the word out to enough people about this, and enough people start using this tool, it really has the opportunity to make a dent in that quantity of stuff that we are just burying and burning every year here in Philadelphia,” says Wittchen.

“We encounter a lot of people … who really do want to make a difference when it comes to waste and climate change, but they’re not sure how,” says Gerred. “A tool like this, hopefully, will give people a way to engage and think about things in a different way, and feel like they’re having some impact.”

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