Ever wonder what happens to a film sets once the lights go down? If you have a green conscience like Eva Radke perhaps is better if you don’t know. For years while working as a department coordinator, Radke witnessed the shocking amount of useable furniture, clothing and building materials tossed out by set designers and production companies alike, due simply to a lack of responsible alternatives.   She says, “The burden of throwing everything away was really starting to weigh heavily on me and I thought, ‘I’m not doing anything positive, and I don’t understand why it has to be this way.’ I just had to stop doing it.” In 2008 she not only stopped doing it herself, but also went about putting a stop to all the industry’s wasteful habits by launching Film Biz Recycling.

Radke thinks of FBR less as a non-profit and more as a creative reuse center.  The 11,000 square foot warehouse in Gowanus Brooklyn which stores the donated materials is also home to an RE-Gallery, a display space for any found-object-based creations, a workshop for shoestring productions looking for a place to layout plans, and classroom.  “As we develop” Radke explains, “we’re reusing these materials to teach people things. We’re organizing workshops right now, and that depends on our materials. If we get in great amounts of yarn, guess what? That means community knitting workshops!”  And best of all, all of these services are offered at no cost.

Another nifty corner of the warehouse is the BFR Prop Shop where 40% of donated materials are for sale, the proceeds of which make all the rest possible.  So whether you want a typewriter, a six foot flamingo, or a marching band uniform the this your one-stop-shop for must have eccentricities.  The other 60% of donated items, and the bulk of the organizations concentration, goes to eight Brooklyn charities.  And that’s a lot of stuff – in only four short years FBR has donated upwards of 200 tons of items to charities that repurpose them.  “What would have been garbage is now a revenue stream,” said says FBR’s Director of Outreach Jane Borock: FBR aims to be more than just a thrift shop, “We want to foster entrepreneurial skills and create jobs for people here in Brooklyn.”