Thrift store eases strain on landfill
From right, Community Thrift Store manager Pam Roech and volunteer Charly Drechsel stand next to the trailer after loading it with 13,558 pounds of clothing and shoes.
Community Thrift Store manager Pam Reoch prevented 6.8 tons of unsold thrift store items from being dumped at the Boundary County Landfill in November.
“This saved our ever growing landfill from gaining a considerable amount of waste,” said Reoch.
From July through November the thrift store filled a semi-trailer with 13,313 pounds of clothing and 245 pounds of shoes .
The trailer was picked up and driven to Seattle and will be shipped overseas for people in need.
Reoch was in a meeting in Spokane where she heard about the company that would pickup the unwanted material and transport it at no cost to the thrift store.
“They send up the trailer, and we have to have enough items to fill it, we load it and they pay for the freight,” said Reoch.
Reoch plans on continuing to utilize the company and would like other like businesses to hop on board with them. The thrift store keeps a storage unit and when it is full enough to fill the trailer they ask the people in Seattle to send it up and haul the items off.
“We could fill up the unit quicker with other places sharing it with us and this way the trailer could be filled up more often and our landfill space saved,” Reoch said.
Reoch’s goal as manager of the thrift store is to keep as much out of the landfill as possible.
“It not only saves the landfill,” Reoch said. “It also saves fuel and transportation costs of the items from the store to the landfill.”
The thrift store wants to continue to do their part in diminishing the amounts going in to the county’s landfill and encourage others to do the same.
The community thrift shop is owned and operated by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Bonners Ferry and is located at 6887 Main St.
Anyone interested in participating and sharing with the thrift store can call Pam Reoch at 267-5359.