The Waste Nots: Revolution Recovery

A Northeast Philly warehouse surrounded by mountains of debris may seem an unlikely site for an alchemist's workshop, but somewhere within these trash heaps, Avi Golen and Jonathan Wybar are conjuring gold from the dross of modern life.

"When we look in a Dumpster," Golen says, "we see commodities where other people see waste."

Revolution Recovery was founded in 2004 when Golen and Wybar rented a parking lot at a scrap-iron yard and began hand-sorting Dumpsters, separating wood, metal and drywall that could be reused. The company has since expanded exponentially at a time when the construction industry has taken an enormous hit. "We were growing so fast," Golen says, "if the recession hadn't hit, I don't know if we could have kept up with it."

The idea behind Revolution Recovery is to keep construction, demolition and manufacturing waste out of landfills, and to preserve and repurpose those materials. In the company's hands, recycling becomes not just a noble goal but a route to profitability: The more they can extract from the waste stream, the more they can sell.

Their mission statement stresses a notion of community, and Golen and Wybar have put their Dumpsters where their mouths are by facilitating the creation of Recycled Artist-in-Residency, a program — started by Fern Gookin, then a Philadelphia University sustainable design student, and the Dufala Brothers — that allows artists to cherry-pick the grounds for materials.

Larger operations are following their path, but it took two guys with a pickup truck to lead the way. "We think this will be the future of how to handle waste," Golen says. "We're a pimple, but where the big players are operating landfills on hundreds or thousands of acres, miles high, we can do the same amount of material on three-and-a-half acres, and we're selling it all back out."

Honorable Mentions: Sustainablity and Design

RACE STREET PIER This multilevel public space created by the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. and designed by James Corner Field Operations (of New York's High Line fame) is handsome as hell, and a promising step in revitalizing the waterfront north of Market Street. THE CITY'S BIKE LANES The Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities gave us new bike lanes on 10th and 13th, studied possible ones for Market and JFK, and painted the Ben Franklin Parkway lanes green, among other initiatives to make bicycling easier. THE WATER DEPARTMENT'S STORMWATER MANAGEMENT PLAN It sounds yawn-worthy, but it's a far-reaching project for using eco-friendly measures to reduce the amount of contaminated water that gets into rivers and streams.

(s_brady@citypaper.net)