New Bronx Store To Sell Reused Building Supplies

Brand-new porcelain toilets, some still in their boxes, stood on a pallet in the warehouse. And stacked against the walls of the building were about 200 doors. This was not the inventory of a Home Depot, a Lowes, or some other big home improvement store, but of ReBuilders Source, a building materials reuse store in the Bronx.

The store sells building materials donated by demolition or construction contractors, home renovators, and other hardware stores with surplus inventory. The main goal project is to offer an alternative to the landfill for building supplies that normally might get thrown into the trash. The store, which opened yesterday, is the first project of Green Worker Cooperatives, an organization with the goal of creating environmentally friendly jobs and businesses in the neighborhood.

In New York, thousands of tons of construction and demolition debris are thrown away each year. But there are only a handful of stores that sell salvaged building materials. Build It Green! NYC, a nonprofit store in Queens, sold about 350 tons of building materials in 2007, according to the program director, Justin Green. It made $900 a ton, he said.

"It's not a massive takeout," Green said. "But New York City could support maybe 20 more of these stores because we do create so much waste."