Squamish’s Peter Poburan prefers reusing things to recycling.
“If you are worried about saving the planet, don’t recycle,” he says.
Poburan recently launched Reclaim Factory, a business that up-cycles items that would otherwise end up in the landfill.
“Recycling is actually a nemesis of mine. It is not reusing. It is actually feeding the system that is causing it,” he said. “It is using more energy, more effort and costs more money.”
Plastics often have to be recycled, Poburan concedes, but many other things such as metals and wood can be reused.
An electrician by trade, Poburan is adept at transforming seemingly useless items such as broken lights, appliances or scrap wood into functional works of art.
“Broken lights to me are a goldmine of resources for the cords, the switches, the light sockets,” he said.
He was inspired to start up-cycling after his wife showed him an item for sale in a magazine that she liked for their home.
“I looked and she was pointing at a stump,” he said with a chuckle, adding the piece was priced at $500.
Instead of dishing out the cash, Poburan found a castoff wooden stump and fixed it up as a side table.
Eventually people started to request some of his items for their homes and his business was born.
Even things like pieces of copper wire can be reused, he said.
“I use all kinds of small pieces. You just have to look at it and go, ‘How can I use this in a creation?’... Instead of just throwing it out.”
While his pieces are also works of art, Poburan sees himself more as a “maker,” he said. “I make things and I fix things.”
A trip to the dump led him to start collecting vintage Raleigh bicycles.
“There was this old Raleigh bike sitting there. It was missing a crank on one side. I took it home, everything was good on it, it had the old-time lights.”
Poburan said growing up in Alberta he was taught to reuse as a matter of course, but for many that is not the case.
More Squamish residents are now returning to that reusing mindset, he said.
“Find out who did it, where it was made and how it was made. I think that is starting to become important to people, especially here,” he said.
He wishes the annual Re-Use-It Fair, which ended last year because of a lack of venue, was still on, but envisions a permanent place for a local swap meet.
“I would love somewhere here where you could just drop the stuff off and it is there if you need it,” he said.
Those at the District of Squamish are also thinking about reusing. In partnership with Squamish CAN, the district is having its first Repair Café on Oct. 29 at Brennan Park Recreation Centre. A variety of repair services will be offered at the event to help locals continue to use what they have.
“It is all about repair and reuse and teaching people those skills that have been lost a little bit,” said Shannon White, the district’s sustainability coordinator. There will be volunteers who do certain repairs, such as sewing, carpentry and electrical.
“People can grab a coffee and take their jacket, or whatever it is, to be repaired but also hopefully learn a little bit about it at the same time,” White said. For more about the event go to squamish.ca.
Poburan’s work can be found on his Reclaim Factory Facebook and Instagram accounts and locally at Be Clean Naturally and Empire of Dirt on Cleveland Avenue. His work will soon be for sale at a new art collective, Buckley Trading Company, opening in the Squamish industrial park in about a month.
