Re-purposing ‘junk’ at the Long Beach Depot for Creative Reuse

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

Thousands of hopeful submissions to President Obama’s new electronic wish list sit expectantly at change.gov, waiting to be read and considered in the nation’s future plans. Among them is one sent by 46-year-old Long Beach resident Lisa Hernandez. “Share your vision,” the Web site encourages. She did. And her vision is simple: establishing creative reuse centers, like her own Long Beach Depot for Creative Reuse, throughout the country.

“Let’s just use and reuse what we already have, instead of buying new things,” Hernandez says. “We could begin to change the way people deal with waste and promote environmental awareness, as well as community and job growth in our country.”

Opened in the East Village in July 2008, Hernandez’s quaint shop sells overruns, samples, misprints, scraps, discards and mill ends donated by local manufacturers, as well as other people’s almost-trash—stuff that doesn’t need to be thrown away but that Goodwill won’t take, either. But to many, most of what the depot sells is just . . . trash.

Not to Hernandez—in her eyes, everything can be innovatively reused and recycled. Inspired by the passing of her father four years ago—after which, she says, she inherited an entire warehouse of junk stored in Oakland, some of it purchased from down-on-their-luck friends—Hernandez seeks to continue his legacy of resourcefulness. “‘Everything has a purpose,’” she recalls him saying. “‘If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be here.’”

Visitors to her store could easily dismiss the shelves lined with old books and the stacks of ratty magazines sitting near the entrance as an ode to crap, an overflowing smorgasbord of salvage. But Hernandez is no pack rat: Everything is organized, proudly showcased and for sale. An island in the middle of the room cramps up the already small space with more stuff: A plastic barrel filled to the brim with used wine corks, donated from Vin de Pays down the street, is marked “10 cents each.” Spools of ribbon discards and salvaged fabric scraps of different sizes and odd shapes pile in a clear bin. Old gift bags and used wrapping paper, slightly creased and crinkled from previous use, go for 5 cents a piece. Wood scraps, cardboard cutouts and leather leftovers are here, too, all contributed to the shop by a manufacturer—they would have been discarded if not for the depot. And at knee-level, small items sit in organized boxes: several dozen empty Altoids tin cans in a tray; stray chess pieces; and empty orange prescription pill containers. Hernandez makes sure to arrange everything nicely. “It shows a respect for the object—where other people usually would think of it as trash,” she says.

Elsewhere, a section of the store labeled “Free Exchange” holds cardboard pieces, egg cartons and toilet rolls. Teachers frequent the area, perusing and digging for possible craft materials for their classes. Trace Fukuhara, a local artist, visits the shop often and, since it opened, has become good friends with Hernandez. “I think it’s the variety I love most,” he says. “Lisa has things that you can’t find anywhere else, . . . and lots of it!”

In Hernandez’s world, everything has the potential to be something else. Trash is no longer trash; it can be reused for art. Old vinyl records turn into ornate flower dishes. Old Marlboro cigarette packages, toothpicks and thread wind up, together, transforming into beautiful, origami-like paper umbrellas. Even part of an old typesetter can serve as a tabletop.

On a recent day in the back room of the store—with John Lennon’s “Imagine” playing on the portable radio—Hernandez pulls out and organizes some of the remaining items carried over from her father’s warehouse. Reviews written up in the San Francisco Chronicle about her father’s former business, Taquería Morelia, are suspended in aging wooden frames. Hernandez remembers the day following the publication of one of the articles—long lines extended out the front door of the taquería, the cook never put his spatula down, and she never stepped away from the cash register. Hernandez takes the clipping out of its frame, along with other newspaper reviews and thank-you awards from local charities, and lays them in a pile.
“It’s kind of sad that I’m taking them apart, but he doesn’t need it,” she says. “The restaurant’s gone, . . . and he’s gone.” Perhaps it’s what he would have done. Then, Hernandez sets the frames aside to stock in the shop among the pine cones, tile pieces, PVC scraps, drawer knobs and teddy bears.

“God doesn’t put a dream in your heart for it to fail”—that was her father’s maxim. Today, it’s Hernandez’s, too—an adage recycled.

THE LONG BEACH DEPOT FOR CREATIVE REUSE 320 ELM AVE | LONG BEACH 90802 | 562.437.9999 | THELONGBEACHDEPOT.ORG

Tags: change.gov, depot for creative reuse, lisa hernandez, Long Beach, recycling