Steph Ripley, the Assistant Technical Director of Soulpepper Theatre Company writes: "One less theatre set in the bin! Thank you to Grant and ReadySetRecycle.com for the suggestions and help on getting our set to someone who will give it a second life...and we are even going to get some money back for it! Here's hoping we can do the same for most of our sets this season and maybe start a recycling frenzy in the theatre community!"

Elisabeth Young,  Production Manager of Decode Enterainment writes: "Thanks to Grant and ReadySetRecycle, we were able to sell most of the goods we had .... the coverage from the site was excellent! We cannot thank you enough!! Without the notice on the website (ReadySetRecycle) our sale would have had a very poor turnout ... Grant did an excellent job for us and we would recommend him, and the company, to anyone!!"

Night wood Theatre, We recently had to clear out our storage area and the posting on ReadySetRecycle made all the difference. We posted our garage sale and got a great response. Making some extra money and giving items a second life is a win win!

Tina Cohen, Visions Display writes: We had listed free wall flats and the response was almost immediate. They went to a good theatre home. The site is friendly and we\'re glad to recycle! Thanks! Visions Display Inc.

We expect more success stories soon but...

However, in a sense, this site is an online version of a Toronto company that had loads of environment success stories, we're going to tell you about this company here:

The company was called Set/Reset Inc. The co-founder, Grant Heggie, who also owns  The Octopus Works –which in turn owns Ready Set Recycle.

Here is Grant's description of Set/Reset Inc. We feel you'll agree this was a significant environmental success story.

Started in 1993 with a $1,000 in start up capital, Set/Reset became North America’s first recycling company for the entertainment industry. Occupying a 30,000 square foot warehouse in downtown Toronto, Set/Reset proved that recycling scenery was not only possible but could be profitable.

Before Set/Reset, when a Toronto a show was done, producers would find themselves paying thousands of dollars to disposal companies to haul sets away to the dump. Set/Reset had an environmentally sound alternative that would actually save production companies money. Set/Reset would come and haul away sets and related materials at half the price of a dumpster company. We would then take the contents, not to landfill, but to our warehouse to be recycled.

Our approach was to make quick snap decision as to what was to be done to scenery as it arrived, each piece would be either

• left as is placed in our for sale or for rent sections
• be repaired so as to be made available as a rental or sale item.
• be dismantled, for lumber and building materials which would then be re- sold at atleast ½ price of what one would pay new! We also collected left over paint that could be re-sold at as little as $5 per gallon.

In the first year of operation, Set/Reset processed over 150 tons of scenery.

Set/Reset was a classic win win for its customers, users and the environment.

As the company grew we built up the largest inventory of rental stock in Canada.

Our monthly input was up to 25 tons. From this input, we had only 3% waste!!!

Our pay roll often exceeded $30,000 per month. In its ten years of operation Set/Reset Inc. created over 1 million dollars in wages for the Toronto Arts community.

In 1998 we opened our retail store – 2nd Episode – selling movie memorabilia and furniture made from off cut/ scrap lumber and painted with reclaimed paints and varnishes. On the whole, not a bad idea!

Set/Reset client list was very diverse, Toronto’s live theatre’s, public schools, corporate tradeshows, church groups, artists, not for profit charities, the general public, plus of course the TV and movie business;

Within the Movie business, Set/Reset also worked with the different unions to educate workers about the benefits of recycling. Working together, we saved a lot of trees from being cut down.

Here is an abridged list of the over 1000 productions and companies who used Set/Reset’s recycling operations.

Warner Brothers
Universal Pictures
MGM
Paramount Pictures
Dufferin Gate
HBO / NYC
Lions Gate Entertainment
New Line Cinema
20th Century Fox
ABC Television
Sony Pictures
Miramax Films
Alliance/Atlantis
Decode
Pushing Tin
Long Kiss Goodnight
Murder at 1600
Bogus
Harriet The Spy
Lions Gate Entertainment
Bulletproof Monk
Rhombus Media
Shaftsbury films

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