The Materials

Persistent Materials ONLY accepts materials or objects that we have a plan and a backup plan for. We are committed to transparency and below you can find exactly what materials we are currently accepting as well as where those materials are going. 

Our first priority is reuse, but the backup plan may be traditional recycling.


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Materials we are currently accepting:

  • Wires, cables, and cords are currently being accepted in partnership with PanPan and Third Wheel Cheese. Bring any electrical wires you have (working or not) to the blue drop off bin outside of PanPan at 705 s 50th street

    Fridays 3pm-7pm Saturdays 10am-2pm

    All wires contain metal that is valuable on the recycling market. You cannot recycle these curbside due to limitations of the single-stream sorting process. Wires will be tested and if they work, they will be offered for people who need chargers in our Cable Library. If they don’t work, they will be recycled with a local metal recycler. We have recently stopped working with EMR recyclers due to some concerns over fires in their New Jersey facilities so we are scoping out some West Philly options and will update when we have a new partnership.

  • We accept fully transparent plastic baggies without text or color. Think: the ones that the little pieces of a board game come in, not ziplocs. We use these to contain and display small PMs to pass along.

Materials we are considering accepting:

  • Shoddy is a material made from shredded denim and other 100% cotton materials that can be pressed into sheets or blocks. It is often used as insulation by grocery delivery services that need to keep contents cold. We have seen it used as a fill material for stuffed creations.