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Reuse, recycle, rebuild
A green crusader erects a Home Depot–like store for used construction materials.
“I was working for city government on green-building issues, and I saw that this whole area wasn’t being addressed,” Elise Zelechowski says about the lack of recycled construction materials on the market. “There are a lot of reuse programs in Chicago, but none are dealing with building materials.” These words might sound strong, but Zelechowski, a 29-year-old green pioneer, is putting her money where her mouth is. Zelechowski works for the Delta Institute, a Chicago nonprofit that develops sustainable projects in the Great Lakes region, and in her free time, she’s transforming a building she owns into green apartments. She’s also getting ready to launch her largest project yet: the Building Materials Reuse Center, set to open late this fall in a soon-to-be-disclosed location.
The center, which will be an affiliate of Delta Institute, revolves around a simple goal: providing used building materials reclaimed from deconstruction projects. “This is very different from an architectural salvage shop,” Zelechowski says about the disparity between BMRC and those pricey boutiquelike stores. The cost of materials at BMRC will remain very low—on average, 10 to 30 percent off retail.
Beyond providing goods—as a recycled Home Depot of sorts—the Building Materials Reuse Center has other ambitions. It will host sustainable programs: work-training for former prisoners, workshops on getting the most out of used building materials and basic carpentry classes. “Used building materials are really different than the mainstream,” Zelechowski says. “If an architect wants to reuse wood, he [often] won’t know the size or the type that he’ll be working with [beforehand].” But at BMRC, customers aren’t stuck with, for instance, a single oddly shaped door plucked from one deconstruction site. “We [provide] a place with availability and selection.”
Other programs Zelechowski plans to launch include a paint exchange and a research arm that studies possible new markets for reuse (for example, Zelechowski suggests porcelain from old toilets could be mixed with gravel to create better roadbeds).
Having already deconstructed eight houses, workers from the center have started storing materials at a temporary North Side warehouse. “We’re getting really nice old hardwood and structural timbers from 100-year-old buildings,” Zelechowski says. Early buzz suggests demand for the materials will be strong. “We’ve gotten so many people looking to volunteer, it’s crazy.” The more people who jump on the reuse bandwagon the better, Zelechowski says, recounting a harrowing fact: “Construction materials account for 40 percent of solid waste. We need to find another way to look at trash.”
Zelechowski is blogging on the center’s progress until it opens at chicagobmrc.blogspot.com.
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