Object Lessons: Creative Reuse in the time of Coronavirus
Photo credit: John Morrison @localcelebrity
Coronavirus has settled in to American society, bringing hard truths to light and forcing industries to assess how they operate, for whom, and why. Creative Reuse as an industry exists in the tiniest intersection of many big overlapping circles: thrift store, craft shop, educational resource, support for underfunded schools/underpaid teachers, community-building experiment, anarchist collective, circular economic engine, nonprofit-industrial corporation, family weekend destination, climate collapse support group, and center for post-capitalist dreaming. In this intersection, we continuously recombine ideas, ideologies, communities, and aesthetics; we pull apart our own preconceptions and make new discoveries; we get down to brass tacks. A creative reuse center is simultaneously absurd, beautiful, gross, and terrifically life-affirming. We mine the dying world for the materials to build a new one, and we bring everyone along with us: absolutely every person that we can reach.
Another head of a creative reuse center, with whom I share a lot of practical and political perspectives, independently came to the same conclusion about their organization that I did about mine: everything that makes a creative reuse center work and flourish, makes it dangerous and nearly impossible under COVID.
This is not to say that there aren't many, many entries in the "now more than ever" file. Our Humboldt Park neighborhood has already suffered devastating personal and economic losses. Parents are faced with having to entertain and educate their offspring while working, or with greatly impacted incomes. Artists have seen their shows cancelled, day jobs dissolved, and opportunities evaporated. People stuck at home and consumed by grief or anxiety need activities that provide some sense of control and satisfaction, or could be turned into a little more income; affordable creative materials are no substitute for mental health services or a social safety net, but they're what we have. Kids still need to learn that objects don't have fixed purposes, trajectories, or expiration dates, and that all our destinies are unwritten. The planet is not heating any slower, and it remains urgent to create modes of consumption that move away from linear, extractive practices and towards a realization of the full potential of existing resources. These must now, however, be weighed against the potential loss of human life. The very things that made us thrive now threaten our existence.
These are salient characteristics of our business model:
We are, above all, a community place. People come to The WasteShed to hang out, they bring their friends and their families. Small children with runny noses run amok with fistfuls of bottlecaps, elders pull up folding chairs to go through the sewing patterns. Friendships and collaborations form over darkroom supplies, mother of pearl buttons and weathered road maps. Folks drop by sometimes weekly, look at everything, dig through everything, touch everything, ask a lot of good questions. Many of our regulars are older people, people of color and folks who don't speak a lot of English; many are at higher risk for COVID and many would find safeguards like an online appointment system hard to navigate. When people come to see us, sometimes they have a supply list or a goal in mind, but more often they come to learn by looking. Once they have finished looking (our average customer visit, even now, is 25 minutes), their average purchase is $12.
All these things are wonderful during normal circumstances. All of them now put our staff and the community at greater risk of contracting a deadly disease. The newest findings about the role of aerosols in COVID transmission only confirms what we suspected; our inspiration could mean someone's expiration. Trying to launch "safer" versions of our normal operations would make it impossible for us to earn enough to support our mission in a meaningful way. We are not in the same category as the most high-transmission industries, like meatpacking, but there still no way to make our space safe for our regular customer use.
With summer ending, it feels like almost every establishment that is not legally barred from reopening is open for regular hours. Plastic sheets and barriers abound, lines form down the sidewalk, and tape on the floor attempts to mitigate risk by directing traffic. Businesses closed in March because they were ordered to, and because the people who worked there were afraid of getting sick and spreading disease to their loved ones. The threat is still here, but the bone-grinding logic of capitalism has reasserted itself. Businesses that could afford to stay closed for two months could not afford to stay closed for five, and their workers can't afford to quit and stay home. The grocery worker and postal worker were hailed as heroes for continuing to work when our city had 12 new cases a day. The same accolades are conspicuously absent for the barber, the florist, and the donut shop cashier now that all (besides the virtual Chosen) are waiting for their turn to be among Illinois' daily 2,000 new positive tests. Somehow, we as a society have justified and normalized this massacre of our neighbors, mostly working class Black and brown people. We have decided that it's the cost of doing business, and the people in the greatest danger have been forced to fall in line or lose their livelihoods.
The movement for Degrowth teaches us that economic activity is not a good thing in itself; our dogged pursuit of More and Bigger and Newer has left us with a planet that is almost uninhabitable, and a population crushed and disempowered by greed, debt and inhumane wages. Reuse positions itself as an alternative to this insatiable churn: a way to honor the materials, energy, and labor that went into creating our absurdly, dangerously abundant material world. There are not enough of these alternatives around, and we are really, really going to need them in the world that's coming. But keeping reuse organizations open is not more important than risking a human life. In this period of history, there is an abundance of things worth dying for: dismantling white supremacy, caring for the ailing, providing lifesaving resources to the unhoused and impoverished, etc. Reselling used arts and craft supplies is not among these things.
We will continue to run our weekend sidewalk sales while the weather permits, but we will not be returning to regular hours this winter; there is no way to make it safe. Not many people are in the position to make this decision, but we hope that more who can, do, and that their communities come together to support them. We will continue to work behind closed doors to keep our community connected virtually and supplied materially, and taking orders for pickup and delivery. We will not allow profit or peer pressure to dictate the terms of our reopening. It is a cliché for small businesses to say they “love their customers.” This could not be more true for anyone than is for us, but love requires strong boundaries, and these are ours. Much love to our awesome staff and board for all their work on making this possible.
It feels strange to raise funds to do less, but after 6 years of working beyond our capacity and continuously innovating around programming, messaging, and getting materials to people that need it, it also feels healthy and necessary. We’ve redistributed over $1.2 million worth of materials, and when it’s safer again we’ll get right back to it. Your tax-deductible donation will help us bounce back in the spring, better than ever and ready to make the most of whatever comes next.
Donate via Paypal, or email us for other ways to support.
Thank you so much, for everything.
Eleanor Ray
Founder and Executive Director
The WasteShed