Film Biz Recycling

In the film industry, once the shoot is over, everything becomes trash.

Entire sets, houses, even whole towns are constructed for a shoot and then promptly thrown into the trash once the film is a wrap. In an industry brimming with waste, where things are bought, modified, and trashed in the span of a few hours, Film Biz Recycling is hoping to bring some restraint.

This isn’t just plastic display food and costume jewelry and faux brick walling (although Film Biz has plenty of those); there’s a simply astonishing array of goods, like racks of designer clothing and shoes, row upon row of high-end leather couches and brass lamps, headboards and telephone booths and bicycles and filing cabinets. And those are just the big items; there’s also aisles of small stuff, from books to toasters to street signs to toys.

Film Biz aims to collect everything the, well, film biz can’t use, separating it into things to sell, things to deconstruct and reuse, and things to donate. They work with dozens of charities, like Blissful Bedrooms, Recycle-a-Bicycle, Room to Grow, Fertile Grounds, and Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, sending clothing to shelters, baby items to single mothers, e-waste to recycling centers, and building materials to reuse shops.

In their years of operation (2008-2015), Film Biz Recycling diverted over 600 tons of items from landfills.

In June 2015, Film Biz Recycling closed their doors permanently.

** Adapted from this piece on Brooklyn Spaces.