Materials

At T4T we strive to source wonderful, clean, safe, interesting items that local businesses discard in abundance, and make them available to shoppers at the warehouse. Over the past 8 years we’ve collected materials from over 200 companies, most of those original manufacturers still donate to T4T today. Since we first opened our doors in 2004, T4T has diverted over 50,000 pounds of materials from local landfill. Those materials include an abundance of plastic and cardboard thread cones, in all colors shapes and sizes, beautiful wood from a shutter company, plastic color chips, glass tubes, fabric and trim, colorful rubber mats, tiles, tubes, Styrofoam….and the list goes on.

In the beginning we sourced and picked up materials ourselves. Today many companies call us to offer and deliver their discards, they like to support T4T because as Marty Kallem puts it: “Spectratek Technologies benefits in two ways, by contributing our holographic discards to Trash for Teaching. we aren’t throwing away as much material, which helps us, since we have to pay for every bit of material that we throw away, plus we’re not filling up the landfills and in addition, our materials help teach children about physics, light and products out in the marketplace today. A third benefit is that teachers get cool materials to use with their students. Normally our trash output can be in the tens of thousands of pounds a week, as just a result of manufacturing, so to even make a dent in that is phenomenal in my eyes.”

Anyone can visit and shop at the T4T warehouse in Gardena, California.

For costs, hours and directions go to Contact Us

If you or your business would like to donate scraps to T4T, go to Donate Materials

Material Membership

Material Gallery