The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shared that the City of Austin will receive a Solid Waste Infrastructure Grant (SWIFR) of $4,000,000 to construct and maintain a new reuse warehouse. The warehouse will be an onsite space for redistributing used furniture and building materials and hosting programming.
The City of Austin has a surplus of valuable goods that are going to the landfill due to space constraints and limited reuse. Austin Resource Recovery, a department of the City of Austin, intends to use the EPA grant funding to permanently fill the resource gap by opening a new reuse warehouse. The new warehouse will accept and redistribute used furniture at no cost to nonprofits and their clients, with a focus on furnishing the homes of those transitioning out of homelessness. The warehouse will eventually expand to also accept building materials. The overall goal of this project will be to reduce the amount of furniture and building materials sent to landfills annually.