DENVER — The City of Denver's Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency (CASR) Office works to reduce consumption, waste, and pollution within the city. As part of that goal, CASR aims to create a circular economy centered around sharing, repairing, recycling, and reusing materials.
One way CASR is working to implement a zero-waste circular economy focuses on "educating Denverites on how to use less and waste less by visiting local resale, repair and rental businesses," according to a CASR spokesperson.
Recently, the Denver Reuse Business Directory was launched to support that effort. It's a list and interactive map that displays local businesses throughout the metro that repair, rent, or buy used items.
"The fact that they even made the reuse directory says something about the certain ambitions of the city," said Chris Scott, director of operations at ReCreative Denver.
ReCreative Denver is one of the stores listed in the directory. The nonprofit has a number of different features, including an art gallery currently featuring upcycled art by Elizabeth Morisette, studio rental spaces for several artists, and a community wood shop. But the backbone of their business model is collecting donated art supplies and selling them for a fraction of the cost.
"It's like Goodwill for arts and crafts supplies," Scott said. "We don't take stuff that I think we can't use... We can give more or less a guarantee that we will get these supplies into the hands of people that can use them."
The art supplies at ReCreative Denver can range from textiles to paints to origami paper — something Scott found for a customer on Thursday afternoon.
"You'd be astonished at what people are willing to throw away," said Scott, who has been with ReCreative since it first began in 2016.
Kelly Eigenberger is the program director for ReCreative Denver. She plans classes, manages social media, and arranges volunteer and gallery events, in addition to throwing pottery in one of the studio rental spaces.
"Working here is so fun. And I'm a little raccoon, and I get to dig through other people's stuff and often find, like, really interesting things," Eigenberger said about sorting through the art supply donations.
She then loves watching those items be transformed into something meaningful for customers and friends.
"Seeing my friends succeed in a fashion show because they get most of their material here," Eigenberger said as an example of how art supplies can be used. "Or kids at Metropolitan State University or DU or wherever able to afford their really obscure and expensive oil painting colors... The stuff that we get ranges from your grandma's sewing room to brand new, unopened, really high-quality material."
Another nonprofit on the Reuse Business Directory is the Denver Tool Library, which functions like a library for a variety of tools.
"You can come and borrow tools to take home and work on your project, or you can come work on your project here in open shop. And if you don't know how to do your project yet, you can take classes with us," explained Sarah Steiner, the founder and executive director of the Denver Tool Library.
Steiner started the Denver Tool Library 10 years ago after seeing a similar concept in Nova Scotia and deciding Denver needed one too.
"We started out really small and scrappy, and I guess we're still scrappy, but we've gotten bigger and we can offer a lot more services to Denver, which feels really good," said Steiner. "By being a part of a community where people are interested in and willing to repair tools instead of just throw them away, it's huge."
Steiner said members join the Denver Tool Library for $150 and borrow tools for a year.
"It's really cool to have one central place that you can go and look and see your options to borrow or reuse instead of just buying new," Steiner said about the directory.
According to CASR, the Denver reuse businesses within the directory employed roughly 3,000 people and contributed $540 million to the economy in 2023.
Denver7 is committed to making a difference in our community by standing up for what's right, listening, lending a helping hand and following through on promises. See that work in action, in the videos above.