Living green often goes hand in hand with spending less, and both are benefits of shopping at Waste Not Want Not, at 1532 W. Sims Way.

The store sells used building materials, furniture, and associated odds and ends, including tools.

“People in Port Townsend love to recycle,” said owner Susan Rising. “We’re really well supported.... About once a week, someone says, ‘Thank you for being here.’”

The shop does a brisk business in yard and garden items – “stuff to do with greenhouses [and] chicken coops,” garden tools, flagstones, fencing, “even little bits of fencing,” Rising said; Port Townsend has a lot of gardeners. Lots of artists also shop at Waste Not Want Not, people who “make lots of fabulous things.”

She points to a box of iron parts, some with beautiful, intricate designs, from an old sewing machine. “We get some really unusual things,” she said, “manhole covers, mannequins.”

Rising bought the business 10 years ago from Brandon Cardinal, who had owned it for 10 years; he bought it from the person who started it, who owned it for about six months. Cardinal was one of her clients; Rising is an accountant. She moved to PT in 1990, seeking a smaller town. She does the books for local businesses, noting that there are a lot of female-owned businesses here, and that she’s worked for some excellent people. “I think females are more understanding that it takes a community and a network and everybody needs to help each other,” she said. “My strength is organization.”

The 4,000-square-foot store is brimming with stuff, and well organized; there’s a room filled with lighting stuff, another with tile.

There’s a lot more outside: A small field of sinks spreads near the door, flanked by a large pile of various hoses and tables full of objects. The “fabulous free” pile is across the driveway from the entrance, and behind the building is a 75-by-75-foot yard with larger stuff.

“I never have to throw anything away,” Rising said; she’ll put stuff in the free pile if it doesn’t sell. “I’ve probably put everything in that free pile that you could build a house out of,” she said.

Waste Not Want Not does not accept donations of electronics. “I send them to Goodwill,” Rising said. However, she does accept other donations that might otherwise go into a landfill. “It’s partly knowing what to price [items] at,” she said. If it doesn’t sell, “I just put it in the free pile. You get to that free price, and everybody likes that.”