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All of these materials that we actually have right here
could have landed in the landfills.
As you can see, none of this is really trash.
Cabinet doors, cabinets themselves,
microwaves, light fixtures,
sheetrock, plywood.
These gray carpets right here actually came from
Yankee Stadium.
We have table saws, we have, you know, like,
these things right here would have been in the trash.
Believe it or not, everything in here has a life.
Cabinet doors are used for something,
fencing is used for something,
molding is used for something,
this tempered glass is used for something.
Just because it's sitting here and doesn't talk to you,
doesn't mean it doesn't have a life.
ReBuilders Source is a worker-owned and operated
home-improvement store in the Bronx.
Members of the cooperative reclaim and refurbish
donated building materials
that would normally be classified as commercial waste,
and then resell these items to people in the community
at a reduced price.
I love this place. This place is a fantastic place.
I like the store, period.
When the store opened in 2008,
it was the first initiative sponsored by Green Worker Cooperatives.
Green Worker, which shares office space with ReBuilders Source,
is a non-profit devoted to starting worker-owned,
environmentally sustainable businesses in the Bronx.
You know, the South Bronx has been a dumping ground for decades now
for all the stuff that nobody else wants.
But it's an area that people live in.
I grew up here,
I've been surrounded by great and wonderful people,
you know, trying to make ends meet,
with dreams, and making those dreams happen.
When Freilla refers to the Bronx as a "dumping ground,"
he means it in the most literal sense.
New York can produce more than 36,000 tons of solid waste per day.
Manhattan, the city's wealthiest and geographically smallest borough,
is the main offender, generating over 40 percent
of the city's commercial waste.
Before traveling hundreds of miles to out-of-state landfills,
most of this trash is held in waste-sorting and transfer stations
in the outer boroughs.
From a city planning perspective, the Bronx has been an ideal place
for waste-transfer stations for two reasons:
First, it's the only borough located on the mainland of the US,
which allows for easy shipping out of the city.
Second, residents of the Bronx have
little of the financial lobbying power
necessary to oppose the stations.
The median household income in the Bronx is $34,156 per year,
about $30,000 lower than in Manhattan.
ReBuilders Source is intended as an alternative
to all of the waste-transfer stations and waste facilities
that are concentrated in the Bronx-- in the South Bronx in particular.
You know, for us waste is just what you call something
when you don't know what to do with it,
and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of tons
of perfectly good building material
that gets thrown out each and every day in New York City.
We have plenty of contractors that constantly come here,
and constantly give us stuff,
being that they're extra materials. They could have been in the trash,
which doesn't make any sense. Why would you throw out something
that's brand new?
Just because you're not using it?
Some people need to understand that.
Well, he's supposed to be coming, he said about three hours or so,
so I'm the type of person that says word is everything.
If you're not here by a certain time, I will put these back out.
Because this is not a storage place.
I don't like to store stuff. I like to sell stuff.
How many people come through here every day, do you think?
Not enough.
At the moment.
Not enough.
After only two years of being open for business,
ReBuilders Source will be closing at the end of May.
The store, while innovative and environmentally responsible,
just wasn't profitable.
Things are difficult right now.
I mean, it's difficult all over the country for businesses,
and small businesses especially.
All of the tax breaks and incentives don't go to businesses like these
when they should.
We would love to get just a little piece of the bailout money
that has gone to the big banks, and just a little sliver of the
bonuses that, you know, everybody at AIG and Chase
and all the others have been making.
The failure of ReBuilders Source could be attributed
to the very problem that the store was set up to address:
poverty in the South Bronx.
The purchasing power of some of the people in this area ...
they don't have all the funds at times.
It's not going to be the end of us, as far as me and my partners.
As far as what we have to offer. We have plenty more to offer.
You'll always have waves on a beach,
so, that's what me and my partners and this message is all about.
There's always going to be somebody behind us, and somebody behind them
that's always going to try to send this message on.
I'm just one of the few tools
that's just trying to let people know about it.
You know, if you don't take care of the world,
if you don't actually take some type of responsibility,
there's not going to be a world out there,
there's just going to be a big dump.
Yeah, there's a lot of trash in the Bronx.
There is a lot of trash in the Bronx.
Because, if you don't love the Bronx,
you're not going to take care of it
like the people who do love the Bronx.