Article provided courtesy of St. Louis RCGA.

If reuse is the best method of recycling, than Resource St. Louis is matching companies for this very purpose.

Started six years ago by John Prater and David Bertorelli, who were then in facilities management with Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Resource St. Louis offers architects, engineers, and general contractors with a means to exchange construction and demolition materials such as carpet, lumber, fixtures, tile and more.

Bertorelli says he and Prater were at an IFMA (International Facilities Management Association) meeting and talking with an Armstrong Ceiling manufacturer about their recycling program for discarded ceiling tiles.

“John and I were doing a lot of renovation and new building construction,” Bertorelli says. “And we were tired of seeing stuff thrown in the landfill. Armstrong’s program at the time was that they needed 30,000 square feet of tiles, which is a full tractor-trailer load, to take it for free.

“I said we don’t have that much, but if we could get other organizations like Monsanto and Washington University together, we could collect the waste and meet that benchmark,” he says.

He and Prater presented the idea to local companies and Resource St. Louis was born.

President Sara Graham came on board after the company realized it needed a material exchange website.

“It works a little like Craigslist, but geared toward commercial and business facilities,” she says. “We don’t want computers. We want lumber, ceiling tiles, carpets, something that organizations can use from companies that are discarding it.”

Resource is a non-profit and deals with larger companies. No storage or shipping is involved. Interested parties need to contact each other and arrange pick-ups.

“If you peruse our website, you will see we have over 8,000 items posted,” Graham says.

Some items posted last year included used bleachers, kitchen cabinets and landscaping pavers.

Sage Homebuilders and Energy and Environmental Solutions, both green builders, are two local companies that have used Resource St. Louis with good results.

Sage Principal Jason Stone says they used Resource St. Louis when developing a piece of property. “We had unearthed 200 boulders and decided it would be very green to use them in landscaping. We were able to use many of them, but the rest we put on Resource St. Louis. We had a lot of landscapers call, and they came and took them away.”

He says it’s “surprising to see what builders will throw away. Once you realize something like Resource St. Louis is out there, it starts to make sense to find the material a new home instead of trashing it.”

Marc Lopata, principal with Energy and Environmental Solutions, says they used Resource St. Louis to find furniture for their offices.

“We got five desks and file cabinets through Resource from Washington University’s medical school,” he says. “We try to focus on reuse first because that’s the highest use of anything.”

According to Buildings.com:
—In the U.S., total building-related construction and demolition waste is estimated to be 135.5 million tons a year —that’s 30 percent of the total waste stream!
—The average new construction project yields 3.9 pounds of waste per square foot.
—The average building demolition yields 155 pounds of waste per square foot.
—Three of the largest waste compounds on most job sites—cardboard, wood and drywall together make up 75 percent of construction waste—are fully recyclable.

With statistics like these, it makes sense to shop www.resourcestlouis.org

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Tags: ReSource St. Louis, reuse, reycyling

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