Probably many of you, loyal readers of Moonshine Ink, remember when plans were announced by Booth Creek Ski Holdings and East West Partners to construct a new, more contemporary village at the base of Northstar Ski Resort. Doing so would require the demolition of virtually every building in the existing village. To their credit, these companies decided to tackle the challenging project using a number of environmentally friendly strategies, including an approach to building demolition called ‘deconstruction.’ Enter, Ted Reiff, the man with the ‘Velvet Crowbar,’ and The ReUse People of California.
To put this story into proper context, let’s take a few quick steps back in time. In a former life, Reiff was a contractor building custom homes in the Midwest. Later he was an investment banker in the United States and Mexico. When the dollar and the peso collapsed, Reiff decided it was time for a new endeavor. When he was asked by a colleague to help facilitate the transfer of reusable building materials from San Diego to Mexico, Reiff realized the emergence of a growing, environmentally friendly business opportunity. What he needed to make it work was material. ‘I started looking at what was thrown away in landfills,’ he explained. ‘I found there was pretty valuable stuff.’ Quickly, however, Reiff realized he needed a more accessible supply. How about the idea of capturing building materials for reuse before they went into the landfill? Bingo!
In 1993, together with a partner, Reiff founded Building Material Distributors. He had the vision to establish the company as a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. The enterprise grew and evolved. At the time of the Northstar Village project, the organization was called The ReUse People of California. Today, it’s The ReUse People of America.
The mission of The ReUse People (TRP) is to reduce the solid waste stream and change the way the built environment is renewed by salvaging building materials and distributing them for reuse. ‘As a 501(c)(3),’ said Reiff, ‘the value of building materials we deconstruct is tax deductible as a donation by the owner of the building. We take great care in the deconstruction process to maximize the value of materials for reuse.’
In the case of Northstar Village, TRP worked as a subcontractor for the prime project contractor, G.E. Johnson. TRP crews were brought in to remove and salvage several buildings for the project, including the 20,000 square foot clocktower building in the original village center. Spearheading the project was Aaron Revere, at the time, Director of Environmental Initiatives at East West Partners in Truckee. According to Revere, the Northstar Village deconstruction project successfully diverted 305 tons of material from landfill sites, including our own Lockwood Regional Landfill. Of this total, 32 tons were purchased for reuse onsite and in the local community, 56 tons of steel, copper, aluminum and other metals were recycled, 47 tons of broken lumber were chipped for ground cover onsite, and 170 tons of material shipped to TRP warehouse in Alameda, California for resale. Additionally, another 218 tons of material were sent to the local material recovery center for further sorting.
Reiff said that 99 percent of TRP’s projects are residential, although the organization has been involved in a number of large-scale, high profile projects. ‘The Northstar project was really fun,’ he recalled, ‘probably the most fun we’ve ever had on a job. It was great working with companies that truly shared our values.’ Other large TRP projects have included the deconstruction of a 30,000 square foot warehouse and 618 housing units. Both of these were for the military in San Diego.
To help distribute salvaged materials, TRP has established a network of partnerships. ‘We are very active in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, as well as in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Eastern Sierra,’ said Reiff. TRP’s headquarters is in Oakland, where they operate a warehouse called the TRP ReUse Bazaar. For the past two years, TRP has been working on a plan to expand its Reuse Solution program (now trademarked) to additional cities and regions of the country. ‘We’ve opened offices in Denver and Boulder, Colorado, with another new one in King County, Washington,’ he said. ‘The Chicago area is coming soon, along with St. Louis, Missouri. This not only gives us access to more deconstruction opportunities, but additional markets for reusable materials.’
Reiff is proud of the fact that the Reuse Solution benefits just about everyone. Once trained and certified by TRP, local demolition contractors benefit by offering their clients an environmentally sound and economically beneficial alternative to traditional slash and burn demolition. Homeowners benefit because the materials salvaged from deconstruction projects represent tax-deductible donations. In addition, homeowners may select the deconstruction contractor with whom they wish to work and don’t have to wait for an opening in TRP’s deconstruction schedule. Entire regions benefit since the materials are reused by someone, somewhere, reducing the amount of debris going to the local landfill.
In our region, Reiff said one local contractor has been TRP trained and certified [Dave Valle]. ‘We still have two of our own crews, but more and more we rely on training and certifying others. That means we can expand faster and farther and divert more reusable materials from the landfill.’ As of the organization’s 13th anniversary last November, Reiff estimated that The ReUse People had diverted more than 220 thousand tons of materials from landfills into reuse. Waste Buster is proud to tip his bag in honor of the excellent work being done by Ted Reiff, the man with the Velvet Crowbar, and the ReUse People of America. I’ll have more about them in a future column.
For information about The ReUse People, including deconstruction training and certification for interested contractors, visit thereusepeople.org.
Waste Buster is dedicated to shedding light on cases of waste in our community. Send your comments or ideas to
wastebuster@moonshineink.com.
