Lumber for my porch ceiling, something that could operate as a kitchen island, and tile of any kind (broken would be fine) for retiling my fireplace. This was my list upon walking into Construction Junction, the Mecca of re-use in Pittsburgh, and a place I have frequented a handful of times over the nearly 10 years it has been in business. Here are 4 reasons that I am the perfect demographic for Construction Junction:

• I own an old house that is in constant need of repair.
• I like old things (not a fan of the shoddily manufactured, love classic styles, don’t mind some imperfections or signs of wear).
• I like a bargain.
• And I hate the idea of the enormous amount of building materials that get sent to the landfill to take up space, decompose and release methane gas, furthering the global warming problem.

Yet, I have never found anything at Construction Junction, and I’ll tell you why. First, I don’t go there often enough. I know people who go at least once a week, and they are the people whose kitchens I’ll be standing in when I exclaim something like, “Where did you get that incredible tin you’ve redone your ceiling with?”

The answer is always the same. They got it at Construction Junction.

Commitment-Phobe? Stop It!

A word to the re-use curious: it won’t work unless you jump in, get obsessed, and fall in love completely. And the benefits to the environment include reductions in greenhouse gases, reductions in industrial waste and pollution associated with new manufacturing, as well as a reduction in the chemicals typical to new manufacturing. Not to mention the pleasure that comes with something with a history, something that has gained beauty and character with age.

Michael Gable, Executive Director for Construction Junction, measures his success in terms of sales, and by those numbers, Construction Junction is doing about as well as other facilities like it across the nation.

Gable says that Construction Junction puts equal effort into sourcing and marketing. Sourcing involves knowing what people want to buy, finding out where to get it, and then getting it into the facility.

As for marketing, Construction Junction uses advertising, the website, cable TV and the Pennysaver. The media in Pittsburgh has been kind to Construction Junction: lots of good press drives traffic to the store. Letting buyers know what’s in-store, through the 5,000 emails sent every week, also helps.

But what an interview with Gable brings to your attention more than anything else is this idea of commitment. “People have to think about everything they purchase. You need to make the conscious decision to try to buy used first, but then if you decide NOT to buy something used, you can make the decision to purchase something new that’s of good quality and will last, so that when you get tired of it, you can put it out there for reuse.”

The Greenest Building Isn’t Made from Scratch

As for the idea of replacing and upgrading for energy efficiency, Gable tells me what a board member of his likes to say: “The greenest building is the one that’s already been built.”

It definitely sounds good, but anecdotally, I have some really, really old windows, and even though they aren’t decomposing in a landfill, they are leaking out my heat, costing me and the environment a fortune, and forcing me to turn the thermostat to 57 degrees every winter night: brrrr. I’m not thinking they’re all that green.

So, what to do when I’ve got the dough to replace them? Well, I’m not going to find the right windows, in all their various sizes, at Construction Junction. That’s just my guess (I vow to confirm this, eventually), but, it would be a pretty tall order. Could I take out the beautiful old fashioned wavy glass and rebuild windows? Sounds pricey and I’m just not sure the result would be much of a conservation improvement.

Thinking about this makes me a little bitter about all the “green” recommendations I hear about getting rid of old appliances that waste energy to replace them with new ones. What do you do with those appliances they’re telling you to replace? Is it better to give appliances with bad energy ratings to someone else to use? They’ll then own an inefficient appliance, but at least they might not buy crap that won’t last, and it will be a machine they can afford, at $50 (a typical price at Construction Junction), vs. $250 + for an Energy Star machine. There are many individuals of low income who shop at Construction Junction, which is another benefit it provides the community.

And where is the McKinsey and Co. analyst to do the math for me?

Gable clarifies: “If you replace your old windows and some of them are still useable (not rotted or broken), don’t throw them away because they have other uses. There are people who restore old windows and you can make those windows energy efficient by adding storms to them.” (ed: I’ve also seen great art projects made out of old windows. In fact, I have a few hanging in my house.)

All of this reminds us as well, that it would help to be handy. Gable agrees that used things are beautiful, but to build them into your existing home requires a bit of know-how.

As Gable said, “Nobody wants to throw anything (away), it’s just so easy to do it, and that’s what ends up happening.” It’s cheaper and easier to throw it away—and if there’s one thing we’re addicted to as Americans, it’s cheap and easy.

“This is the reason Construction Junction has put together an active salvage program,” said Gable. “We realized we needed to come in and remove items for free. This got more contractors interested in us. They were happy to let us take out things, and we ended up with more materials to offer them in the store.”

Infrastructure for Re-Use or ... Apocalypse? You Decide.

The salvage program was just one step in the effort to create a living, breathing infrastructure to support re-use in Pittsburgh. Eventually, Gable believes, the infrastructure will be there in every state, the way it has come to be a necessity in states like California and Massachusetts, places that have run out of landfill space and created laws out of necessity. In California, 50% of Construction and Demolition (C&D) debris must be diverted from the landfill every year, by law. Massachusetts is enacting a total ban on C&D to landfills.

Lack of landfill space, cost of dumping (tipping fees), better connections between re-use facilities and contractors, more facilities for recycling used construction materials, and you and me, making our commitment—all of this will build the infrastructure necessary to reduce the C&D descent into the great dump of off-gassing.

I feel it, the urge to re-use, so I call my friend Pat, a contractor who is interested in helping me with my kitchen remodeling, should I ever get started. I’ve found some cabinets here at Construction Junction—I want to know if he thinks they’d be a fit for my space. He’s right around the corner at a job site, and he shows up in 10 minutes. “This place is amazing,” he says. But he tells me that the cabinetry isn’t high enough quality, won’t work in my kitchen.

We stroll around Construction Junction. He admires things I wouldn’t have taken a second look at: glass with frosted designs, giant keystones, light fixtures.

I mention to him a theme of Gable’s, the endless stories he hears of perfectly good materials shipped to the landfill. Multiple dumpster loads of 9 foot mahogany doors. Entire apartment buildings’ worth of claw foot tubs. “Oh, yeah,” Pat says. “I tore out a $50,000 kitchen once, and I wasn’t being paid to find a home for it. Brand new, but it had to go, as a matter of the owner’s taste. Both the dump manager and I were mortified, but into the heap it went.”

The vision of these things, valuable things, coveted items, wasted like this—it feels apocalyptic. Not to be hysterical, but then again, maybe we should be. Or, we could just take the plunge. Get committed.

Commitment to Re-Use:

• Break the addiction to cheap and easy; look for possibilities instead
• Get on the mailing lists for re-use facilities
• Visit re-use facilities often: use a list, but keep an open mind too
• Learn to be handy, or make friends with someone who is
• When you want to buy, commit to searching out used materials first
• When you buy new, donate what you’re replacing to a re-use facility
• When you buy new, spend a little more on high quality materials that will last

Jennifer Bannan is a marketing consultant and author of a book of short stories, Inventing Victor. She lives in Pittsburgh with her two children.