Turnip Green Creative Reuse’s New Location
Turnip Green Creative Reuse isn’t a new store, but it moved to a new location this year, and it’s the best one yet. The nonprofit collects thousands of pounds of materials that would otherwise get tossed in the trash — seat belts, padded envelopes, empty pill bottles, anchors, screws and glitter, to list just a few — and organizes and categorizes it all. The stuff is then sold with a pay-what-you-can model, and used in arts educational classes that Turnip Green leads.
When Turnip Green left East Nashville for Wedgewood-Houston, its first stop was at a spot that was sometimes hard to get to thanks to train stoppages on Fourth Avenue South. The new location on Third Avenue South is train-drama-free, larger and hyper-organized, allowing for happy hours of browsing.
I keep a running list of what I might need — electrical plates, spray paint, tulle fabric — to keep myself from getting distracted by shiny objects. However, my favorite find this year was, in fact, a shiny brass belt buckle that I put into immediate rotation. I love the serendipity of what I find when I walk these newly organized aisles and the ideas I get for new projects (regardless of whether I complete them) as much as I love the zero-waste nature of the whole enterprise. Turnip Green Creative Reuse is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday at 1014 Third Ave. S. MARGARET LITTMAN