GROWING THE REUSE ECONOMY TOGETHER
Reuse News
Reuse News
This is an introductory class on the basics of clothing repair, focusing on non-stretch woven fabrics. We will go over selection of materials, hand sewing techniques, and multiple ways to sew a patch with a decorative flair. No prior sewing experience necessary! Participants are welcome to bring a damaged garment to work on, but samples and fabric to work with will also be provided.
Instructor: Laina Torres
Create something beautiful from old t-shirts using reverse appliqué, a sewing technique where multiple layers of fabric are sewn together, and the top layer is cut away to reveal the fabric underneath. Using only hand sewing techniques we will learn how to plan and stitch reverse appliqué designs while making a small coaster to take home. This class is suitable for sewing beginners. Materials will be provided, but you are welcome to bring two contrasting -shirts to cut up.
Learn how to transform old clothing and textiles into a one-of-a-kind basket, bag, water bottle holder, and more! In this two-hour workshop, you’ll learn how to make fabric yarn from secondhand materials and how to crochet around the fabric to bind it into a sturdy, finished basket. Bring your own textiles or select from our provided materials.
Beginner crochet experience is required (must know how to chain and single crochet).
Instructor: Joanne Wang
In this two-day workshop, you will learn how to make your own journals, sketchbooks, or scrapbooks. You will learn the most versatile method of traditional sewn binding of multi-signature books with hard cover and spine, called “case bound”. Understanding book structure will give you the skills to repair any hardcover book. You can bring in books that need repair for analysis and we’ll discuss how to mend paperbacks, prepare fabric for book covering, and more. You will complete one small finished book.
*Note: Class run time is 1-5pm on Sat, 1-3pm on Sun.*
Participants will get an email with a required materials list.
Come learn the basics of how to make electrical connections, and how to solder! Electrical soldering is a crucial skill for repairing electrical components and can save you money and help keep e-waste out of landfills. We will cover safety, electricity basics, supplies, and best practices. All materials will be provided.
Instructor: Elliot Donlon
Do you have a lamp, small appliance, textile, or bike in need of repair?
Bring it to the Repair Fair!
Volunteers and specialized repair professionals will be on-hand to repair your items. We ask that you stay with your item while it's being fixed and participate as much as you’d like!
Find all the details and link to register or volunteer here.
Do you have a lamp, small appliance, textile, or bike in need of repair?
Bring it to the Repair Fair!
Volunteers and specialized repair professionals will be on-hand to repair your items. We ask that you stay with your item while it's being fixed and participate as much as you’d like!
Find all the details and link to register or volunteer here.
Do you have a lamp, small appliance, textile, or bike in need of repair?
Bring it to the Repair Fair!
Volunteers and specialized repair professionals will be on-hand to repair your items. We ask that you stay with your item while it's being fixed and participate as much as you’d like!
Find all the details and link to register or volunteer here.
Do you have a lamp, small appliance, textile, or bike in need of repair?
Bring it to the Repair Fair!
Volunteers and specialized repair professionals will be on-hand to repair your items. We ask that you stay with your item while it's being fixed and participate as much as you’d like!
Find all the details and link to register or volunteer here.
Do you have a lamp, small appliance, textile, or bike in need of repair?
Bring it to the Repair Fair!
Volunteers and specialized repair professionals will be on-hand to repair your items. We ask that you stay with your item while it's being fixed and participate as much as you’d like!
Find all the details and link to register or volunteer here.
Do you have a lamp, small appliance, textile, or bike in need of repair?
Bring it to the Repair Fair!
Volunteers and specialized repair professionals will be on-hand to repair your items. We ask that you stay with your item while it's being fixed and participate as much as you’d like!
Find all the details and link to register or volunteer here.
Do you have a lamp, small appliance, textile, or bike in need of repair?
Bring it to the Repair Fair!
Volunteers and specialized repair professionals will be on-hand to repair your items. We ask that you stay with your item while it's being fixed and participate as much as you’d like!
Find all the details and link to register or volunteer here.
Do you have a lamp, small appliance, textile, or bike in need of repair?
Bring it to the Repair Fair!
Volunteers and specialized repair professionals will be on-hand to repair your items. We ask that you stay with your item while it's being fixed and participate as much as you’d like!
Find all the details and link to register or volunteer here.
Presented in partnership with the Petaluma Arts Center and Recology San Francisco and Santa Rosa, It’s Not Trash: Reclaiming and Transforming honors artists who repurpose discarded materials to create work centered on sustainability, storytelling, and community restoration.
Santa Rosa residents, do you have good-conditioned furniture, clothes, or small appliances that you have been meaning to get rid of? Were you interested in looking for some free home items? Or do you want to learn some furniture repair tips? Come to the Santa Rosa Reuse Bazaar on September 26, at Grace Pavilion at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds!
Drop-off times are 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
Free Shopping times are 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Although now more often associated with mattress sales, the original Labor Day celebration in the United States was held in 1882 and is still relevant to us today. Find out how it connects with Reuse in this months Reuse News.
We asked, and you answered. Thank you all for taking last month's survey and giving us feedback on where we can adjust our newsletter. With that, we will be changing a few things to best serve what you want. This month we will be focusing on ongoing community and reuse practitioner happenings from us and around the North Bay. If you prefer written stories, we haven’t forgotten about you; some months will include a main story along with other important information! Let us know how we did by replying to this email, we’re always open to feedback!
This month, we want to hear from you. Help us by taking this short 15-question survey to help us curate the reuse newsletter into what you want it to be.
What do you want to know? How is the pace? What are we missing? And mostly, we want to learn about you – our awesome readers and community that want to practice reuse.
Take the survey here.
Dumpsters overflow and discarded furniture piles up at curbs on July 31 each year in Austin, Texas, when rental leases end and students move out of their off-campus apartments. If you live in a university town you may have noticed a similar problem this time of year as the academic year ends.
But across the country universities are stepping up to address the challenge. Read more in this month’s Reuse News.
When solar installations surged 10-15 years ago, homeowners focused on financial savings and cleaning up their energy use. One question now emerging for those early adopters is what to do when you need a new roof. Do you re-install the older system or buy a new, higher efficiency system? Solar installations typically outlast the roofs they were installed on; for example solar panels now have a 40+ year lifespan vs. the typical 20+ year roof lifespan. Because of this, we now have a surplus of high-quality, pre-owned solar equipment. Sounds like a job for reuse…
Guilty. Even though I read 41 books last year, my purchases doubled that. I'm a reader, but more than that I am a typical American consumer. Under the guise of supporting local authors and independent bookstores, influenced by raving heartfelt reviews from friends, family and, I'll admit it…#booktok, I look at my busting shelves not at all shocked when the host of Freakonomics Radio mentioned that 320 million books a year are thrown away. Thrown away! But it doesn’t have to be that way…
As everybody knows, you need the right tool to do the job right. But what if that tool costs several thousand dollars and you only need it once? Enter the tool lending library.
Across the country tool lending libraries provide tools for people in need, people looking to learn and experiment, and community groups and disaster relief. Lear about Tool Libraries and find one near you in this month’s issue of Reuse News.
Did you know that the waste from demolishing a single family house is equivalent to the total waste generated by one person over their entire lifetime? In addition to that crazy statistic, construction and demolition (C&D) constitutes over 20% of our total waste generated as a society, and in some areas it can be as much as 40%! But it doesn’t have to become waste…
… Learn more about deconstruction and building material reuse in this month’s issue of Reuse News.
This was a big year for the Reuse Alliance. By far the biggest leap we took this year was opening The Reuse Hub, a brick and mortar location in the Petaluma Village Premium Outlets, where we are raising the visibility of reuse resources in the North Bay. The Hub provides office space, staging and storage for all our operations and exponentially expands our ability to serve the public. We are open five days a week and offering additional services, including workshops (in all four types of reuse), repair consultations by appointment, community events (panels, roundtables, meet-ups, swaps), and more.
Find out what else we’ve been up to in our latest issue of Reuse News.
For this year’s reuse gift guide we have identified some great reuse gifts you can BUY and where possible we have included a DIY option.
If you aren’t crafty, but would like to make some gifts check out our upcoming workshops at the Reuse Hub (including how to wrap your gifts in reusable cloth gift wrap!).
We’re excited to announce our 2025 Reuse Awareness Campaign launched on October 20th - National Reuse Day!
This year’s campaign is called ‘Join the Re-conomy’ and focusses on the economic benefits of reuse. We hope you will share your own stories of how reuse saves more than money.
To find out more about the campaign and download the partner toolkit visit www.jointhereconomy.org
A fat worm coiled in a specimen jar? No! Wait! That’s plastic tubing!
An extraterrestrial lurking in the corner? Wait! Is that a lamp?
These are artworks made by participants in T.R.A.S.H., which stands for The Recology Artstart Student Hub, a new artist-in-residence (AIR) program, piloted at Recology Sonoma Marin this summer.
Lauryn Morris used to love driving her 1975 Datsun 280Z around L.A. At red lights, other drivers would often make eye contact, give her a thumbs up, and invariably say, “Nice car!” That goes a long way in explaining the branding of NICE, the company she founded to convert old gas cars into electric vehicles.
NICE stands for No Internal Combustion Engine and it taps into that vintage-car vibe. Yours could be a NICE car, whatever the make or model.
It’s Friday, and the Reuse Hub is buzzing. In the textiles corner, prep is underway for the evening’s mending workshop. Ten students will be arriving to learn patching and seam repair basics and the textile coordinator is laying out fabric scraps and donated embroidery floss in a rainbow of colors.
A visitor at the info desk is getting resources for where to donate various things they’re cleaning out of the garage. Some of the tools they can donate to the hub where volunteers will clean, sort, and package them for resale or use in our programs …
Welcome to The Reuse Hub, a central place for reuse in the north bay.