Getting thrifty: Bronx ranks near bottom in reuse services

Jack Hart hasn’t seen it all, but he’s seen a lot — all from behind a cluttered counter at St. Stephen’s Thrift Shop.

He once remembered a bus of Japanese tourists were dropped off in front of the modest two-story house to shop. Another time, a barbershop quartet stood singing outside on the wraparound front porch. 

Hart has had people bring in items ranging from Lalique crystal to Vera Wang gowns. 

Hart has worked as the thrift store’s director for the past 16 years, a place at 435 E. 238th St., where anywhere from 20 to 200 people can walk through the front door on any given day.

In the span of just 30 minutes on a Monday afternoon, three different people walk into the shop either to donate or purchase a myriad of used goods. One man simply dropped a gently used red Keurig coffee maker on the counter and went on his way.

“Everything that we have has been loved by somebody once, and they didn’t want to throw it away,” Hart said.

The aisles of the shop are overflowing with apparel — toy Barbie dolls, trucks, books, shoes and dishes. Here, secondhand items are received through donations and sold for anywhere from half to a quarter of the original price.

“People are having trouble making ends meet,” Hart said. “We’re providing a need. We think it makes the world a nicer place.”

In the Bronx, stores like St. Stephen’s Thrift Shop are rare breeds. According to a new report released by the city’s sanitation department, the borough accounts for just 9 percent of organizations and businesses throughout the city that engage in repair, reuse, and rental services — places like auto shops, tech repair stores, furniture rentals, thrift stores, and flea markets. 

The report was conducted as part of the citywide initiative of eliminating waste shipments to landfills by 2030. 

The average New Yorker discards some 2,000 pounds of waste per year, but at least 10 percent of that could be donated or reused, the sanitation department said. Stores like St. Stephen’s Thrift Shop allow items that would otherwise be tossed into the waste stream to instead find new life. 

Hart himself hasn’t purchased anything outside of the store in 16 years, besides once buying a Christmas present for his godson at Macy’s.

“The stuff that we’re selling really shouldn’t be thrown out, it’s good,” Hart said. “You can reuse things and keep the garbage down.”

Together, textiles and materials like metal, plastic and glass make up almost 20 percent of items that enter the city’s landfills or incinerators.

Stephen Tierney, owner of Karl’s Auto Body shop on West 240th Street, said his business alone tosses a few hundred pounds of metal to the curb each month. They don’t go completely to waste, though, as someone picks it up in the hopes of reselling or recycling the bits and pieces for about 5 or 6 cents per pound.

Unfortunately, the shop throws out more material than they can repair, Tierney said. Though he believes that Karl’s Auto Body makes a much bigger effort to reuse parts than other mechanics in the area.

“A lot of shops don’t want to repair (anything) now,” Tierney said. “It’s more money for them I guess. Other shops want the big money all the time.”

The Bronx is no stranger to waste sites. There are just three neighborhoods that handle 80 percent of the city’s waste, and the South Bronx is one of them.

Buying bargained items at St. Stephen’s Thrift Shop or having cars repaired at Karl’s Auto Body not only supports local business, but also helps clean a city that produces twice as much trash as any other metropolitan area on earth, officials said.

Another plus, Hart suggests, is the personality a secondhand store can provide that major retailers like Macy’s or Sears cannot. 

“Shopping isn’t as pleasant as it once was,” Hart said. 

“Here, you know the people, everything is unusual. We fill a lot of human needs that the stores are not able to do at this time.”