Located in the Cincinnati area, Indigo Hippo is a small business that focuses on reselling used art supplies to give these materials another chance, rather than tossing them into the trash. Indigo Hippo and the City of Dayton both encourage recycling and reusing items to help reduce Ohio’s waste.
Indigo Hippo
Indigo Hippo is an art supply shop located in Cincinnati that offers plenty of supplies, ranging from knitting, printmaking and illustration to photography, hardware and floral.
The catch for this store is that it is a non-profit reuse store, meaning that everything they sell has been previously donated and then marked for sale.
“Our mission is to broaden access to creativity, reduce waste, and inspire a sense of possibility by giving creative materials a second life in the hands of our community. Sustainability is a key piece of our mission, and our work centers care of earth and care of people,” their website reads.
The store was founded in March of 2016 and has been successfully selling art supplies and reducing waste in the Cincinnati area for years! Emily Dake, co-founder and Executive Director for Indigo Hippo, discussed why Cincinnati was chosen as its location.
"I have been around since the very beginning and helped get Indigo Hippo off the ground as a co-founder. Our main founder has come across the model of creative reuse in other parts of the nation, and was inspired by the possibilities of offering a second-hand resource for art supplies to our creative community," Dake said.
A very interesting part of their business is that they offer a “pay-what-you-can” system. When you step into the shop, you will find that all items have a sticker attached to them of four colors; these colors indicate the sliding scale price for that item.
Yellow stickers indicate a price of 5 cents to $1; red indicates a price of $1-3; green indicates a price of $3-6; and orange indicates a price of $6-9. Anything that costs more than $9 will be individually marked with special tape, but most items in this category will not exceed $20.
They calculate price by the number of items in each sticker category, and then give you the option to pay for the low, medium or high range price. For example, if you have five items with a red sticker, you will be offered to pay $5, $10 or $15 for your items.
There are also plenty of spots within the shop available, including canvases and frames, markers, stamps and ink, plenty of other art supplies, office supplies like envelopes and even knick-knacks and handmade items sold my employees and others at the register.
"Indigo Hippo is an amazing connecting space, and I am always inspired by the stories I get to be a part of, whether that is hearing about the life of materials from someone donating... or helping connect someone to a creative material they may not have considered before," Dake said. "We have lots of little treasures up by the front desk, and our miscellaneous crafts section is always changing with lots of fun materials!"
Indigo Hippo is open for donations on Tuesday and Wednesday from noon-5 p.m., and is open for in-store shopping from Wednesday to Saturday from noon-6 p.m. There is also an option to shop online, though you will need to pick up your items once they are ready; shipping is not available at this time.
You can find the store at 1334 Main St., Cincinnati, OH.
Waste reduction
The primary goal of Indigo Hippo is to reduce art waste for items that would have otherwise been thrown out if not given the chance to be resold at this store.
As a non-profit, the store also does not rate its success by its finances; instead, members of the store, like Storefront Manager Laura Schroeder, measure its success by how many people visit and the number of material diverted from the waste-stream.
"To date, we have collected 233,974 pounds of materials and diverted it from the waste-stream," Schroeder said. "The focus on the creative reuse model helps keep creativity sustainable, but it also helps make creativity accessible to more people. It is amazing how our community can work together to achieve these goals in tandem."
Schroeder began her career at Indigo Hippo after working in fashion design and art education, which made her realize just how much the textile industry wasted, as well as how important it is for art education to be accessible. She has been passionate about waste reduction and the arts for a very long time now.
Luckily, Indigo Hippo has been able to divert almost a quarter of a million pounds of materials. This fact is no small feat- in fact, it is something to be celebrated! Last week, the store celebrated its accomplishments and birthday with a raffle and a "Roll-a-Reuse" event, in which players could roll a number between 1-6, and take an item out of the corresponding jar. There was also a gallery show!
Over the course of Indigo Hippo's lifetime, it has narrowed down its list and process on how to accept donations and what to do with what cannot be accepted.
"Generally, if an item can be repurposed creatively, we will take it. However, there are items that we do not take, purely because there are some other resources in the city that can take these items in greater quantities, like egg cartons. We rarely discard donations," Dake said.
Items are only discarded if they do not follow the donation guidelines; some examples include items that are stained or smell, or broken items that cannot be repaired.
For those who cannot visit Indigo Hippo in-person to donate used art supplies, but still want to contribute to waste reduction, there are plenty of ways for regular citizens and students to prevent waste and recycle in a way that fits into their routines!
How you can recycle and prevent waste
One way to reduce waste is by composting, which is the method of allowing things like food scraps and yard trimmings into a dedicated bin, often called a compost bin, and allowing it to decompose into compost. Compost can then be used as a mulch or as a kind of fertilizer for plants.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency encourages composting where possible, as it is an excellent way to recycle food scraps and other items into something beneficial.
“Composting is nature’s way of recycling. It is one of the most powerful actions we can take to reduce our trash, address climate change and build healthy soil. By turning our food scraps and yard trim into compost, we use it to protect the environment and create resilient communities,” EPA’s website reads.
You can compost at home by making a backyard compost; more can be learned on the EPA’s website. It is also possible to contribute to a community compost, in which you drop off your scraps to community spots.
Waste-Free Dayton has two provided compost stations: 2nd Market Street and Pink Moon Goods. Waste-Free Dayton is also an excellent source for learning how to reduce waste in the Dayton area and in your home.
Dayton’s official .gov website, which can be found here, actively promotes the use of recycling bins and making a dedicated effort to recycle as much as possible. However, there may be some misinformation or confusion about what items are able to be properly recycled.
“Everyone can help Dayton’s recycling program work as it should! Recycling the right way reduces contamination and costs that occur when trash has to be processed multiple times,” Dayton’s website reads.
Common items to recycle include glass bottles and jars, aluminum and steel cans, plastic bottles, cartons and some types of paper. It is important to thoroughly clean anything you plan to recycle, as food waste, grease and other contaminants may disrupt the recycling process and can risk sending recyclable items to the landfill along with the contaminant.
A “Recycling Cheat Sheet” PDF can be found here for those who may be confused.
The city of Dayton provides free recycling bins in one of two ways: by using Dayton Delivers on your phone, tablet or computer, or by calling 937-333-4800 to request a recycling bin.
"Sustainability is important for so many specific reasons- climate change, biodiversity, natural resources [and] worldwide pollution... I think about it as caring about how others, in the future especially, experience the world," Schroeder said.
Recycling and striving for sustainability is an incredibly beneficial thing for everyone to do. It helps our environment and helps reduce waste; finding ways to reduce waste, either by shopping at or donating to Indigo Hippo, or reducing waste in your own home, is incredibly worth it.
