logo
book Subscribe to our Magazine
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
    • Grassroots Fundraising Journal
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Podcasts
    • Tiny Spark
    • Women of Color in Power
  • Webinars
    • Free Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership

Nonprofit Newswire | One Person’s Trash is This Nonprofit’s Treasure

Bruce S Trachtenberg
April 19, 2010
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

April 17, 2010; Pittsburgh Gazette | We read a lot these days about dire economic conditions putting many nonprofits on the edge extinction. What about a nonprofit whose business thrives on failures? That’s essentially the business model for Construction Junction, a Pittsburgh nonprofit that promotes conservation by salvaging salable items from old properties and in the process keeps lumber, tiles, flooring, plumbing and other building materials out of landfills. The 11-year-old organization feels it could do even more to help itself and the environment if the city and private property owners were more willing to let it have a go at buildings ready for the wrecking ball. According to the PIttsburgh Gazette, the city continues to hold on to several condemned properties it controls “because of liability and title issues.” Among the reasons the city is reluctant to permit Construction Junction from doing deep salvage, where crews remove everything worth saving from a home or building, is that if the property is considered a hazard, the city can tear it down even if it doesn’t have full title, but a third party can not. Construction Junction also would like more business from owners of private properties. But Mike Gable, the group’s executive director, says a salvage job costs more than a straight demolition. For instance, it takes several weeks and about $15,000 to do deep salvage on a property, but an owner can bulldoze it for about half as much money and in just a few days. Gable maintains, though, the benefits of deep salvage far outweigh the costs. For one, it provides jobs. Second, the salvaged materials sell for less than the cost of new items. And finally, landfills are spared. More to the point is a 2006 study by Mercy Corps Gulf Coast Hurricane Recovery and Penn State’s Hamer Center for Community Design. Among its findings: “Recovering just 50 percent of the total lumber materials from 1,000 older wood-framed homes is equivalent to 5 million board feet valued at $2 million, which is enough lumber in turn to build approximately 400 new wood-framed houses at 2,000 square feet each. The conservative estimate of optimal labor to recover this quantity of materials from approximately 1,000 homes would create 160 full-time jobs for one full year at a living wage. The avoidance of waste from a 50 percent diversion rate is equal to about $1.04 million in disposal cost savings.” We like to see someone try to rip apart that argument.—Bruce Trachtenberg

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

NPQ_Spring_2022

You might also like
The Liberatory World We Want to Create: Loving Accountability and the Limitations of Cancel Culture
Aja Couchois Duncan and Kad Smith
Hearing Every Single Voice: Consensus, Voting, and Co-op Democracy
Anj Talley
The More You Know: Sharing Power by Sharing Information
Nicole Koch
Indigenous Creators Call for Infrastructure
Steve Dubb
Putting the “Social” Back in Social Enterprise: An Evidence-Based Approach
Reece Steinberg
What If We Owned It?
Darnell Adams

Upcoming Webinars

Group Created with Sketch.
June 9th, 2 pm ET

Remaking the Economy

Wage Justice, Now!

Register
You might also like
AOC’s “Tax the Rich” Dress Dazzles Met Gala, while...
Anastasia Reesa Tomkin
Foundation Giving Numbers for 2020 Show 15 Percent Increase
Steve Dubb
Strike MoMA Imagines Art Museums without Billionaires
Tessa Crisman
WOMEN OF COLOR IN POWER
Women of Color in Power

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe
Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Authentic Leadership
Reclaiming Interrupted Lineages

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Submissions
  • Advertisers
  • Newsletters
  • Copyright

Subscribe to View Webinars

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.