The Rebuilding Exchange (RX) was founded in 2009 by the Delta Institute and has recently become its own independent non-profit. Its mission is to create a market for reclaimed building materials and to keep perfectly usable building materials out of the landfill. The RX retail shop sells reclaimed lumber as well as other oddities like bowling pins and vintage stoves for the enthusiastic home builder. RX also provides education and job training programs as part of its mission to create innovative solutions to the problem of waste management.  In 2014, RX partnered with Chicago Ideas Week to host a lab about reclaimed building materials and DIY scrappiness.

Volunteers and employees fit in time for fun at the Rebuilding Exchange (RX).

Why did you choose Chicago?  Tell us about what it means to be a business in Chicago.

There is a high rate of building demolition in Chicago, and folks are looking for environmentally responsible and sustainable alternatives to traditional building materials. Our job training programs also addresses employment issues in Chicago. Originally, we chose Brighton Park because it is a working class neighborhood with a high percentage of homeowners performing their own home renovations who need access to affordable materials. We moved to Bucktown to further facilitate pickups and drop-offs of materials and to be located in a central area near the freeway, easy to access by car or foot.  RX wants to create a thriving reuse community and be a model for how reused materials can be applied in other locations as well.

If you could go back in time before you became involved in running the business and share one piece of advice with yourself, what would you tell yourself?

Reuse is all about diverting as much material as possible, but it’s also about taking the right stuff and the usable stuff! When you go to a thrift store and it’s not sorted and there are piles everywhere, it feels easy to give up and just go to the closest big box store instead. Organization and sorting items make reuse retail warehouses a viable alternative to traditional home improvement stores.

What are your next steps?  

Coming up are more Slow Ride Sessions with Good Beer Hunting and New Belgium. Throughout April, our warehouse will be having a spring cleaning sale, with 40 percent off select items and 50 percent off all doors without glass. Dinosaur BBQ, opening up soon in West Town, features RX Made reclaimed tables throughout their restaurant, and other RX Made custom work is featured in the new Reckless Records store in Wicker Park. Our summer workshops program was just released through August with classics such as Woodworking 101, Open Shop and Make it Take it classes, in addition to our DIY and sustainability classes such as Home Energy Efficiency, Wood ID, Repurposing Trim, Scraptacular, Aquaponics, Canning and more!

We want to be in the know!  Name one person, place or thing that you think is one of Chicago’s best-kept secrets—a secret until now, of course.

We are big fans of the 3D Ordinance here, and we want more people to know about it! The ordinance requires that a minimum of 70 percent of all demolition debris be diverted from the waste stream and that 5 percent of that material be reused. Building materials constitute about 26 percent of the total waste stream, so diversion in this category makes a large impact. We’d like to give a huge shout out to Cook County Chief Sustainability Officer Deborah Stone and Manager of Engineering Bryant Williams, who works with the Cook County Department of Environmental Control, for helping to pass it.

Q&As are edited for clarity and length.