Film Biz Recycling To Close

One of our favorite places in the area for unusual finds, and a great business idea for helping the environment, the Gowanus-based non-profit Film Biz Recycling will close in June.

The retail thrift store and prop shop launched in a warehouse space in 2008 at 540 President Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenues, as a pretty genius business — with so many film and television shoots in the city, literal tons of materials were simply being discarded, and Film Biz stepped in as a resource to recycle and reuse those set pieces.

According to a message posted on their website, they’ll stop accepting donations at the end of this month, and will be selling everything off cheap before they close in this summer:

With our heads held high, we announce that Film Biz Recycling will be closing.

We were unable to secure adequate and sustained funding. Film Biz was incredibly successful. We won an EPA award, diverted over 600 tons and changed the culture. Time to evolve.

We will no longer be able to accept donations after 4/30 and we will be liquidating and vacating our space by 6/20. See our “Where to Donate” page for more information on where you can bring your reusable set pieces.

They apparently just weren’t bringing in enough money to make it work. Film Biz founder and president Eva Radke tells Gothamist that the prop shop contributed to most of their budget, but it was difficult to secure funding from donors since they weren’t quite the traditional non-profit that people are used to.

Items will start going for cheap as of next week, with prop shops and other industry members given first dibs (through May 9), and then they’ll open it up to the public May 11-23, when everything will be 25% off, then half off from May 25-June 6, 75% from June 8-13, and then in their last few days from June 15-20, whatever’s left is yours at whatever price you’re willing to pay. They’ll close on June 21.

“Thank you to the thousands of fans, clients, donors and supporters,” they wrote. “We did incredible things together!!!!”

As for what will fill the massive, 11,000-square-foot space, Radke tells Gothamist she’s unsure what might move in there next.