Reconsuming their way to success
Quintin Winks AV Times
Russ Armstrong and Sheryl Lloyd’s business is an exercise in opposites, a kind of entrepreneurial counter culture.
The pair’s shop, the Free Store, has become a wildly successful business where the merchandise is all free. Of course that’s where the business problems start, but not for the reasons someone might expect. Rather than plunge the partners into poverty, it’s made them more successful than ever. In fact, it’s overwhelming them.
The problem is that the shop began as a kind of redistribution business in the home of Armstrong and his partner Lloyd. Community members would deliver things they no longer wanted; a dated wardrobe, a temperamental toaster, an outgrown tricycle. These articles were sorted to give away or to be sold for a nominal fee to help pay the bills for the burgeoning business. It was a simple plan that very quickly became a victim of its own success: as word of mouth spread, more deliveries began arriving and the diversity of materials increased. The partners turned nothing away, preferring instead to reuse and recycle everything so that almost nothing finds its way into the landfill.
“We think we might be the only true carbon credit you can get,” said Armstrong, who once owned and operated the Mount Arrowsmith ski hill. “Anything thrown in the landfill leaves a carbon footprint. But if it’s diverted here, it becomes carbon neutral. We give it away, back into the community, which is a carbon credit.”
Before long Armstrong and Lloyd needed to find more space, serious space, for the mattresses, furniture, appliances and clothing that kept on arriving. In under a year they’ve gone from their 1,000 sq. ft. home to filling 34,500 sq. ft. of space, mostly in the shop at Bute Street and 4th Avenue. Meanwhile Armstrong and Lloyd have begun calling the Free Store the Reconsume Centre, a stronger reflection of their commitment to the environment. Even what’s broken or in unusable condition is stripped of its metals, which are sold to recyclers, and all other materials that can be sold or reused.
While the partners are pushing themselves and their volunteers to keep up with the steady stream of donations flowing in, and the work involved with sorting, stripping, cleaning and mending, they’re only at the tip of the iceberg. Now they’re getting phone calls for commercial materials.
“A guy called me yesterday from Nanaimo, asking me if we can pick up 350 bathtubs and toilets he took out of a hotel renovation,” said Lloyd. “But we don’t have time and we don’t have a vehicle. So now he’s going to drop them off.”
Anyone needing a toilet or tub can help themselves to the bathroom facilities, but Lloyd would rather see someone in the Alberni Valley come forward with a solid proposal for recycling the porcelain. Which again highlights the challenges the partners are facing. They both said they’re exhausted trying to keep the flow of goods moving in one end and back out the other. As a result they have no time to create partnerships with other businesses that could use the materials donated to the Reconsume Centre. And that has them at wit’s end, said Armstrong.
The business makes enough money to pay the rent and even a couple of employees, but the Reconsume Centre needs more staff, more money, more equipment, more material, even a vehicle for pick-up and delivery of goods, said Lloyd. It also has a tremendous amount of material that could be recycled and used in any number of applications, so both Lloyd and Armstrong are hoping the Alberni Valley will step forward and speak to them about what all is possible.
For more information, call Russ Armstrong at 250-735-2420. QWinks@avtimes.net
