(upbeat music) I'm Shirley Min.

Get ready to recycle, reuse, and reimagine.

You Oughta Know is next.

A once vacant convent turns into a gathering space for families.

- I value community a lot, and I want to get to know people in my neighborhood.

- A search to cut down household waste shift shifts into a sustainable business.

I challenged myself to look out there and find a refillable option.

You don't have to ditch that old tea.

Instead, give it new life.

Clothing shouldn't be thrown away.

It can be repurposed.

Plus, see how art, gardening and food are bringing neighbors together.

The idea was to create a community gathering space.

Welcome to You Ought to Know I'm Shirley Min.

Today's show is about finding new purpose in what we already have, hence why we're coming to you from the Resource Exchange, a creative reuse center and store in Kensington.

But we're starting the show in West Kensington at the Open Kitchen Sculpture Garden, where sustainability Disability and community come together.

Everything here has a story.

It comes from somewhere else.

It transforms into something else.

And that's the beauty of reusing things.

The idea was to create a community gathering space for people to share food and talent.

The main word is really share and grow together and build community.

The reason why it's called the Open Kitchen Sculpture Garden is the importance that food has in your experience of living, you know, like your grandmother's cooking and we have cultural events where people come here and cook traditional foods.

And so people have an experience of other cultures.

We have potluck dinners here every other Wednesday.

I've been doing that for the past nine years, even when there was hardly anything on these lots.

But it was a way of bringing people together here and making them think about what possibilities this place could turn into.

So food has always been a way of making people gather here.

The first thing I made was an earth oven.

And an earth oven is probably one of the oldest ways of cooking.

It's got recycled material from Tyler, the art school, which was clay slip.

So the slip had to be combined with sand to get it to the right consistency to make the actual cob.

And the cob oven is used mostly in early spring or in the fall.

But once it gets going, you can put anything you want in there and in two or three minutes will be done.

A friend of mine who went to Burning Man, he had this tripod and he left it here and another person said, "Oh, you know, we could rig up this tripod and we could build a thing so that we could cook."

It works on a pulley and so you can lift it up and It's a small infrastructure that fed 110 people.

It has 2 ovens and the whole top is stainless steel grill.

In Uruguay they do a lot of cooking outdoors, and parria, which is the way they barbecue, is very different.

So he came up with this, he designed it.

It's all done with wood and very small pieces of wood to heat up very high temperatures.

It's been the main focus of the project is that because any time that we do need to feed people that's what we'll use.

The garden has been a staple for so long and just seeing what Pedro has done I think opens up a lot of possibilities for art, for gardening, for food, for building community.

I love objects and materials and the idea of transforming things and making things.

Everything that you see here has been picked up from the trash, donated or found somewhere.

So everything does come with a story.

We just use it in a different way so that it's functional or it's artistic.

Those types of connections make our life much better.

Whether it's a vintage t-shirt or an old pair of jeans, Stitch and Destroy can show you how to give it new life.

The greatest challenge of running a zero waste business is coming up with how to create those clothes.

I went to college in Baltimore at the Maryland Institute College of Art and I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Textile and Fiber Arts.

I concentrated a lot in sustainability, experimental fashion, and in school that's where I really developed my sense of style and how to create clothing from textile waste.

This is an example of a completed garment.

So you can see all of those patchwork pieces.

When Stitch and Destroy opened, I knew we were the only place in Philadelphia that was really dedicated to repurposing and creating clothes solely from textile waste.

We carry about 35 other artists that are doing similar work.

And then in our storefront, we're also very unique in that we have our workspace.

So people, when they come and shop, they can also see me working back there and seeing that process.

I love to shop somewhere where you never know what you're going to see next when you go through like a clothing rack because you do end up with like something that you would never expect, something you might not have been looking for in the first place.

This mannequin is an excellent example of some of the work that we create in the shop, but also other designers that we have.

So this skirt is actually made from an old quilt.

And this denim bucket hat we also make in one of our workshops.

And it's a great first step to learning garment design, accessory making.

Pretty simple to create, but you do get to learn how to sew those curves and circles.

We're gonna make a tote bag today out of vinyl banners.

So this was someone's birthday celebration banner that they no longer needed 'cause it was a one-time event.

But we're gonna make some bags out of them today.

The textile fashion industry is considered probably the second most polluting industry in our world.

There is so much waste generated but also just the manufacturing of new clothing is extremely detrimental to our planet.

I've always had a passion for our planet, trying to make the world a better place to live.

There are a number of output sources that we get our textile waste from.

One is pre-consumer waste.

That's when there's waste in the textile industry.

This bolt of fabric, they only use so much of it, they're gonna throw the rest away.

We get that waste through our partnership with a company called Fab Scrap.

They're a non-profit, but there's also clothing swaps, and you can come and give and take and whatever's left over, we use to make things.

- I think this store is really important to have a space here in the city where we can celebrate upcycled material.

I just found it fascinating that we could make some amazing stuff out of what would otherwise be garbage.

Clothing shouldn't be thrown away.

It can be cut up, redesigned, and repurposed into new garments a vacant space in Mount Airy is repurposed to give families a space to find comradery and support i just wanted to find a place that Elle could run around and be a lttle kid That story and more coming up.

(upbeat music) - I'm here with Karen Jarrett, the Executive Director of the Resource Exchange.

Karen, this place is huge.

There's so much to explore, but for people who have never been here, what exactly is the Resource Exchange?

The Resource Exchange is Philly's Center for Creative Reuse.

We're an environmental arts non-profit that saves materials from landfill so that the community can reuse and repurpose it.

We're part thrift store, part art gallery, and also part community workshop space.

You are the founder.

How did your background inspire you to create this space?

I used to be a film and theater scenic artist, and once you're behind the curtain in those industries, You get to see the amount of waste that goes on behind them.

So part of that was trying to save all of the useful materials and props and fabrics and all of the lumber, all of the things that go into making film and theater sets so that other people could repurpose it.

So that was seed number one.

But also I'm from this area and moved away to San Francisco for ten years and there was a wonderful place there called Scraft which I believe might have been the first creative reuse center in the country which was a great resource for all of my artist friends and myself.

We used to go th all the great materials.

to philly, I thought, oh, was a creative review cent it took took 10 years, bu I'll just start it myself that.

You know, I needed something.

It wasn't here, I guess I have to start something.

Um, who comes here to shop and what are some of the more unusual things people might find here?

Alot of people come here to shop from different backgrounds.

Everything from artists and teachers, students, DIY homeowners.

Pretty full, diverse of both donors and customers.

Because they come here to source a lot of maker materials to make things but also to maybe find the cool prop from the film or theater We have a very unusual inventory that is different from a lot of typical reuse and thrift.

>> You said the word "donor," which means you take donations, but you don't take everything.

How do you decide what to accept?

Uh, we screen our donations because of our environmental mission we want to make sure that everything that comes through our doors is reusable and not recycling and for those types of things that we don't take, clothing um electronics things that are not in reusable condition We've started something called Resource Philly over a decade ago, just kind of a best practices and referral list for local places where people can take things.

And so when people we interact with them and when they come in and out the door, we say, OK, we we take this.

But, you know, for these things, you can take this here.

And so we have that.

And then with Circular Philadelphia, we recently were able to broaden that into an actual website.

Oh, I love that because knowing where to go is half the battle, right?

We are sitting in the recreate gallery.

Tell me about this.

So this gallery has been here for about 15 years and is sort of the core of what we do.

We support local artists who make things out of reclaimed materials.

Pretty, pretty broad spectrum of of talent here.

You know, everything from textile arts to painting and jewelry making furniture.

And we have rotating seasonal shows where we have a sort of salon style set up for people who have come here and sourced materials and made something transformed in something beautiful.

It is really neat.

It's a cool way to see how you can showcase reusing all these different materials and create art out of it.

I love it.

Karen, thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you.

When it comes to living sustainably, even the smallest changes can make a difference.

At a shop in Narberth, Pennsylvania, one woman is helping people make the shift.

Living a little greener doesn't have to mean overhauling your life.

Sometimes it starts with refilling a bottle.

As you start to shift one thing at a time, it really starts to add up.

For Kimberly Bezac, her own shift toward low-waste living started years ago with the book Zero Waste Home.

So I started trying to cut out plastic and single-use containers and find options to refill and reuse.

And word started getting around that my family only made one bag of trash per year.

How on earth did your family of four produce only one bag of trash that was going to a landfill in a year?

I challenged myself to look out there and find a refillable option or an option that was at least not in single-use plastic.

And so through many years of just one thing at a time, switching things over, We worked towards a point where we were only making one bag of trash a year.

What started as a personal challenge eventually became Shift.

Kimberly, this is where the shift starts at the refillery.

Yep, this is our refillery, the heart of the business.

We try to have every item that you would use in a typical day, It's about 100 items that you can refill either in your own container or you can buy one of our curated containers and fill it up.

You can even refill things like bug spray.

I have some containers.

How does this whole process work?

If they have a container that's clean and dry, they can bring it in and then you only pay for what goes inside.

The products arrive in 55-gallon drums.

Once they're empty, the drums go back to the maker to be sanitized, refilled, and sent back again.

So, really, nothing is thrown out, wasted?

Nothing is thrown out.

Nothing is going to the landfill?

We don't even have a trash can in the shop.

For some customers, making the shift is worth going the extra mile, literally.

Donna Beauchamp drove an hour to get here.

And what brought you in?

I came for this great deodorant.

And you brought back the container?

And I brought back the container.

What do you think of this whole concept?

I think it's a great idea.

One little change.

If everybody did one little change, it changes the world.

Donna, I love it.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

I'm sorry, I get emotional.

I do.

If people were going to embrace this lifestyle, it had to feel as easy and convenient as possible, and it couldn't feel like a sacrifice.

That's why when people walk in here, I want it to feel beautiful.

I want it to feel elevated.

I want it to smell good.

(upbeat music) - My goal for the shop is for you to leave here feeling hope.

I say every shift counts because sometimes when you're out there doing it by yourself, you're like, how does this even matter?

We have now diverted in less than five years over 85,000 containers from the landfill.

So like that collective action of all of us working together in our community really is making an impact.

As neighborhoods change, so do the places that once brought people together.

In Mount Airy, a former convent is getting a second life, thanks to some local families.

in the first year or so of Arlo's life, just how isolating it can feel.

I just kind of wanted to find a place that I could feel like Ellie could run around and be a little kid.

No one's going to care that she's running around and yelling and being crazy and having fun, right?

And screaming.

And screaming.

Common Space is a member supported cooperative family play space in Mount Airy.

My kid was nine months old and I didn't really know anybody.

What if we had a space in our community that had really low barrier to entry, that was set up to embrace the social needs and the play-based needs of both kids and parents?

The group wanted to see a place where they can bring families together and we've been Looking for some group of people to use the convent.

Holy Cross has this incredible convent that is three floors, that has tons of big open space, that has some nice light, that we were able to transform in really just the space of a weekend into a play space that is supportive of, again, both kids and parents.

I value community a lot and I want to get to know people in my neighborhood.

I just try to remind myself that it takes time to get to know people.

It takes time to like build connections with your neighbors.

So when there's like some space that you can do that it's really helpful.

This desire to have another space where we could have our kids, you know, play on their own, unguided by us, watched by us, but unguided by us and have the chance to like have an adult conversation.

Just that eases the sense of like exhaustion that is so present in parenting young children And today it just surprised us how how much we kind of got more than we bargained for here.

This is the default.

When I wake up on a weekend, my daughter asks for it by name.

It takes a village to raise kids, and this is sort of a way of creating that village for ourselves.

In this week's Youth Lens, a rare partnership that turns construction waste into objects of art.

When I was in kindergarten, you had to present about what you wanted to be when you grew up.

I did want to be a trash man or a scientist.

My name is Billy Dufala.

I am co-founder and creative director at Rare.

There's a lot of fun to be had jumping into dumpsters and looking for materials and making it yours because it didn't cost no money to do it.

Our mission is to challenge perception of waste culture by providing a platform for I'm an artist at the intersection of art and industry.

To see a stitch or a scar on a sculpture of mine is to see where healing and history coexist.

Making little parts come together to make something stronger, to make something complete, I'm interested in that.

My name is Gabrielle Constantine and I'm a resident here at Rare.

Someone's whole life is wrapped up in a truckload.

Objects turn from something to nothing in a split second.

To be able to utilize the waste that's coming through here and make something out of it It speaks volumes and is exciting and a duty as artists.

This industry by nature is kind of invisible to most folks.

Being able to invite an artist into a construction and demolition waste recycling facility and give them kind of carte blanche to run amok, that has an endless amount of opportunity to creatively visualize this thing thats virtually invisible to a much larger public Being here at this residency, I have access to all of these materials I think the act of collecting and seeing the potential in certain objects or knowing how i can uh adjust it to make it shine again is something that's exciting I feel connected to people that call themselves craftsman more than call themselves like visual or fine artists My dad had like a butcher shop and I grew up in an Irish pub so a lot of those spaces really are influential to my practice now.

Wall to wall carpeting is also a really important material for me.

It's something that was a status symbol at one point that as time has passed it's matriculated into working class and immigrant households.

They carry generations of stories and time and like objects have witnessed a lot and Sometimes more than people have.

(upbeat music) - Being able to create a platform that supports others, both creatively but beyond just like a studio practice.

I think we're supposed to make people ask questions.

I think that we're supposed to make people look at things differently.

I think we're supposed to inspire and hopefully, you know, in some ways innovate so we can inspire others who might have different skill sets.

I think this place has got so much potential and I feel like we've scratched the surface but there's more work to do I'm not throwing in the towel anytime soon.

Even this week's Flix fits with our theme.

Off to the movies we go with Patrick Stoner with a remake of the classic Angel and the Bad Man.

There's a natural order in this world.

Sooner or later, every man gets exactly what he deserves.

(dramatic music) - Angel and the Bad Man is a remake of a 1947 film starring John Wayne.

His first job as a producer as well.

This current one stars Zachary Levi, Meg Frazier, Neil McDonough, and the director is Julio Quintana.

I began with him by talking about the differences is between the remake and this one.

It's an interesting question because you can see like so the 1947 version for example like you see that it's coming off of the World War II era.

There's a pacifist vibe going on about like kind of beating all the swords into plowshares and so that is a major theme of the original movie is the Quaker non-violence which is kind of weird for the western genre.

It's much grittier these days A little bit closer to how gritty it really would have been then Would that be a fair statement?

and does that help or does it have anything to do with developing the characters?

The key to a good western is you should be able to smell your characters.

When you look at the characters on screen, you should be like, "This guy hasn't had a shower in weeks."

There's certain things that it was a different time.

There were no microwaves.

There was no easy way to get water.

There was no easy way to start a fire.

So everything was much more of a struggle, right?

to start a fire.

So it was everything was much more of a struggle right so you have to capture that on The key to a good western is you should be able screen to make it authentic.

The key to a good western is you should be able I've got to believe that there's always the little The key to a good western is you should be able boy putting on the gun stepping with the hat into a The key to a good western is you should be able street like this that must conjure images from The key to a good western is you should be able our earliest days of experiencing things.

The key to a good western is you should be able Oh that's absolutely true.

The key to a good western is you should be able I mean the little kid and me almost The key to a good western is you should be able Almost every time I get to take on a role, I'm putting The key to a good western is you should be able on a costume of some kind.

The key to a good western is you should be able I'm getting to use my imagination.

The key to a good western is you should be able But particularly when you get to step into period costumes The key to a good western is you should be able that are real and authentic to that time, it lends itself to The key to a good western is you should be able being present in the moment as that character in those scenes, The key to a good western is you should be able the natural lighting.

The key to a good western is you should be able So all of that, I think, lends itself to the The key to a good western is you should be able authenticity of the piece.

The key to a good western is you should be able How happy would you have been living in that time?

The key to a good western is you should be able I don't think I would have been very good.

The key to a good western is you should be able I would like to think I might have been, but the standards The key to a good western is you should be able and the expectations of women, I think that was the main The key to a good western is you should be able difference coming at it for me in this film was that we did The key to a good western is you should be able have a bit more freedom to play with her grit The key to a good western is you should be able and her intelligence and her sense of humor.

The key to a good western is you should be able And for a female audience watching this film, I think that The key to a good western is you should be able they'll be pleasantly surprised and pleased at how The key to a good western is you should be able women are portrayed.

The key to a good western is you should be able I appreciate that.

The key to a good western is you should be able Thank you all very much.

The key to a good western is you should be able You were very helpful.

The key to a good western is you should be able Absolutely.

Thank you for your The key to a good western is you should be able time today PBS.

The key to a good western is you should be able And that is our show.

The key to a good western is you should be able I wanna thank the Resource Exchange The key to a good western is you should be able and you for tuning in.

The key to a good western is you should be able Good night, everyone.

The key to a good western is you should be able ♪♪ The key to a good western is you should be able