Beyond the bin: 5 Chicago changemakers who want your unwanted goods
Thinking about tossing your old toothbrush, your too-small jeans or the colored pencils you never use in the trash? Not so fast! Here in Chicago, we’re fortunate to have an abundance of nonprofit organizations dedicated to finding good homes for our unwanted stuff.
Whether you’re looking for ways to reduce the amount of waste you send to the landfill, or want to support your community through donations, we encourage you to check out these five Chicago nonprofits — all of which happen to be female-led!
Reduce Waste Chicago
Founder:
Sherry Skalko
Origin Story:
“I like to say that I was radicalized by a toothbrush,” jokes Sherry. Stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, she wondered if there was a way to recycle her daughter’s old toothbrush. After some Googling, she found a TerraCycle program that accepted dental waste— but there was a catch. For a free shipping label, she needed to collect five pounds’ worth, far more than her family of three would produce in a reasonable amount of time.
So she emailed friends (“I know this sounds gross…”) and invited them to drop off their used toothbrushes in a box outside her home. About a month later, she’d collected enough to ship off. And, she started thinking, “What happens if we do this on a larger scale?” In 2021, she founded Reduce Waste Chicago to do just that. Since then, they have diverted more than 44,000 pounds of material from the landfill — an incredible leap for a movement that started with one toothbrush!
Accepted Items:
Books, athletic shoes, cords and chargers, denim, ink and toner cartridges — and dozens more categories. The list of items accepted by Reduce Waste Chicago is extensive; take a look! For each category, Reduce Waste Chicago shares the ultimate destination, fantastic transparency for those of us who like to know where our items are heading.
Why We Love Them:
We’re inspired by Reduce Waste Chicago’s creativity and focus on making a big impact. They have found meaningful homes for loads of items we discard regularly without a thought. Like bread tags, those simple little clips found on just about every bag of sliced bread. Reduce Waste Chicago collects them for an Indiana-based organization called Danielle Cares for Chairs, which uses the revenue from a recycler to help kids who need them buy wheelchairs. All that, from a little piece of plastic — bravo!
Notable Number:
4,618 — Pounds of nonworking holiday lights collected in 2025 — and saved from the landfill!
Get Involved:
Check out Reduce Waste Chicago’s list of accepted items, then visit them at one of their frequent reuse and recycling pop-up events throughout Chicago.
EcoShip Chicago
Founder:
Aleksandra Plewa
Origin Story:
In 2021, Aleksandra’s partner, Peter, was looking for used packaging materials for his reselling business. Wanting to give him a hand, Aleksandra started asking for materials on Facebook. She quickly uncovered a Chicago shipping materials ecosystem.
Plenty of Chicagoans hated throwing used shipping materials in the trash. And plenty others, especially small businesses, desperately needed the packaging. In 2022, Aleksandra launched EcoShip Chicago — effectively becoming a matchmaker between the two. “I think we’ve proven what we’re doing is very much needed in communities at this point — and it’s wanted by people, too,” she said.
Accepted Items:
Bubble wrap and packing peanuts are two of the most requested items, Aleksandra said. Also in demand: plastic bubble mailers, packing paper, and thermal insulated bags. An important rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t want to receive a package contained in your shipping material, don’t donate it.
Why We Love Them:
EcoShip Chicago is making a big difference for small businesses — exactly what Aleksandra had in mind when she launched. One of her early regular customers was a small ceramics business working out of a one-bedroom apartment. Now, the business has its own studio and they pick up a vanful of packaging materials each week. “It’s been amazing,” Aleksandra said. “It’s been wonderful to watch so many of these small businesses grow and flourish.”
Notable Number:
47,385 — Gallons of packaging collected in 2024
Get Involved:
Drop off shipping materials and other accepted items at their West Town headquarters, 1947 W Chicago Ave, or other collection points listed on their website. Please note that EcoShip does not accept branded shipping packages from sites like UPS, FedEx or USPS.
If you need free shipping supplies, shop online or stop by during business hours. EcoShip also hosts fun events and workshops — check out their events calendar.
Photo provided by The WasteShed
The WasteShed
Founder:
Eleanor Ray
Origin Story:
After working at a similar organization in Portland, Eleanor was inspired to establish a creative reuse center in Chicago. In 2014, The WasteShed was born with the goal of collecting and redistributing reusable art and school materials that would otherwise be thrown away.
Materials are made available to the community at a low cost — and for free to educators. A second WasteShed location, in Evanston, opened in 2021.
Accepted Items:
Donate art and craft supplies like paint, brushes, pencils, markers, pipe cleaners — even googly eyes. The list of accepted items is extensive. Recently, people have been interested in creating vision boards, said Ulisa Blakely, director of programs and development at The WasteShed, driving demand for common materials like scissors, glue and paper.
Why We Love Them:
“One of the ethos that we live by is about play,” Ulisa says. “People tend to forget that, as adults, you need that outlet to be curious and to play and to follow your curiosities. We take that art and craft approach to help people not only start the conversations about sustainability, but also start conversations about what it is to be well.”
Each year, The WasteShed returns an average of 50 tons of materials back into the community. That’s a lot of play.
Notable Numbers:
10 — The anniversary The WasteShed celebrated in 2024. Incredible!
Get Involved:
Donate, or shop, at The WasteShed’s locations in Chicago, at 1754 N. Kimball, or Evanston, at 1245 Hartrey Ave.
Photo provided by the Chicago Tool Library
Chicago Tool Library
Founders:
Tessa Vierk and Jim Benton
Origin Story:
Fascinated by the concept of creating community spaces for adults, and inspired by the lending libraries she’d seen in other cities, Tessa launched The Chicago Tool Library in 2019.
“I usually tell people, it's a lot like a book library; the concept’s the same,” said Tessa, who is also the library’s executive director. “It's a place where you can go to borrow things, but instead of books, we have all sorts of useful objects that you can borrow. And then people catch on really quickly, and they're really excited, and it sort of gets their imagination going when they realize that there are different ways to get access to the things that they need.”
Rentable Items:
The Chicago Tool Library has a wide definition of “tool,” Tessa says. Yes, they have handheld power tools and carpet cleaners. But they also have cleaning equipment, snow sleds and slow cookers. “Really, we lend any sort of item that may be too expensive for you to want to own it, too rarely used, or may be too big or bulky for you to store,” she says.
Why We Love Them:
Life can involve a lot of stuff. And that stuff costs money and takes up room, and what if you don’t even use it for that long? Like a carpet scrubber! We love that The Chicago Tool Library makes the “stuff” of life accessible — without having to buy or store it. “It really opens up new possibilities for a ton of different kinds of people,” Tessa said.
Notable Numbers:
Over 80% — The “fix rate” for The Chicago Tool Library’s monthly volunteer-run repair fairs
Get Involved:
The Chicago Tool Library offers a choose-what-you-pay membership plan. Visit their website to see their selection of tools and learn more about purchasing a membership.
Photo provided by The Parlor by TrashPeople
The Parlor by TrashPeople
Founder:
Penny Gibbons
Origin Story:
In 2022, Penny founded Trash People of Logan Square, a community of people who cared for their neighborhood with regular clean-up events. As the campaign grew, she grew interested in collecting items that could be distributed to community organizations and nonprofits. In 2023, The Parlor was born.
Accepted Items:
The Parlor maintains an evolving list of accepted items, ranging from reusable water bottles to strollers to deodorant.
Why We Love Them:
Figuring out where to send your unwanted items — other than the trash bin — can be time consuming. Penny designed the Parlor to make things a bit easier for Chicagoans who want to be environmentally conscious and support vulnerable communities. “My experience of trying to reduce my own environmental impact and knowing there is a reuse purpose for this, this and this, it's a really inefficient system,” Penny said. “For those of us who do want to minimize our environmental impact, it's actually a lot of work to constantly be driving around the city to drop off five of this item at this location and five of this item at that location. So the list was really built so that as an individual, you've got a one-stop shop to get a whole bunch of your items into a reuse system.”
Notable Numbers:
99.9% — Percent of items donated to The Parlor that are sent to a mutual aid group or nonprofit benefiting vulnerable communities
Get Involved:
Reserve a time to drop off your donated items at 3325 W Wrightwood. The Parlor’s most-needed items include men’s clothing, toiletries, towels and teaching supplies. Interested in funding or supporting The Parlor? Email hello@trashpeople.org.
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