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Box 6 Deconstruction
Neil Seldman
Souvenir bricks from a university building have sold out at $1 per brick through an innovative
programme introduced by Dynasty Deconstruction, a new and fast-growing social enterprise
serving the Cleveland Metropolitan Area. In 2 years, the 16 person company has deconstructed
no fewer than 75 homes and 2 buildings at Kent State University. The programme is also linking
other types of recycling to the culture of higher education, such as end-of-term dorm clean ups.
Dynasty Deconstruction is now serving several cities in Ohio. Its expertise in brick recovery
and marketing has even brought the company to New Jersey. And the rapid rise of this small
business is by no means unique. A non-profit enterprise in Maryland, Second Chance Inc, has
grown to 25 workers in just 3 years.
All together, about 300 deconstruction enterprises (both for profit and non-profit) have arisen
in the last 5 years. The market for deconstruction grows as the cost of disposing of construc
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tion and demolition waste soars. The value of used building materials has similarly increased.
Environmental awareness of the need to reduce extraction of virgin materials as an antidote
to global warming is driving conscientious businesses to think recovery and recycling. From
there they find that this approach improves their bottom lines.
In Massachusetts, there is no choice. Land-filling of construction and demolition waste has
been banned since the beginning of 2006. Nationally, about 75 per cent of the estimated 200
million tons of waste is now processed for reuse as aggregate and mulch per year. Innovative
equipment, know-how and institutional arrangements have flourished. The annual confer
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ences of the Building Materials Reuse Association feature new nail-removing and wood-planing
equipment. The Green Institute in Minneapolis pioneered in the application of tax deductions
through deconstruction, an approach expanded and improved upon by Second Chance in
Baltimore. Inventory control systems are shared among practitioners as well. Second Chance’s
contracts for workforce development and deconstruction of public buildings with the city of
Baltimore are yet another addition to the techniques replicable in all cities and counties.
Each of these companies is unique. Dynasty Deconstruction, for example, has no resale facility.
All sales are made on-site, through word of mouth and newspaper advertising. The company
uses hand tools exclusively and partners with demolition companies for demolition services.
At the same time, the company is not monopolistic. It has shared information, contacts and
offers of joint ventures with others interested in getting in the business. The flow of materi
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als from Dynasty Deconstruction sites is impressive. They include elevators, church pews,
birch doors, all makes of furniture, carpets, marble and windows. Many items are reserved for
donations to low-income service organizations. Metals are sold to scrap yards and traditional
building materials (struts, tresses, flooring and roofing materials) are recovered and sold to
local builders.
The company recruits workers locally and provides all training. Ludwig, the founder and CEO,
runs a tight ship. If a worker is not seen for 10 minutes on a job an alert goes out for safety
and efficiency reasons. In the last 6 months bricks have represented 50 per cent of all materials
handled. The buyers send their trucks to pick up cleaned and stacked loads. Ludwig estimates
that he has sold over 150,000 bricks in the last year. The immediate next step for the company
is to set up, or joint venture with, a resale outlet so that the company can be directly linked
to a full service system, and perhaps start local demolition companies. He is also looking for
a construction and demolition waste landfill to purchase so that he can recover materials and
restore local landfill capacity.
In the UK, social enterprises such as Dynasty Deconstruction can draw on a special national
investment fund. Dynasty Deconstruction is self-capitalized and mission driven, even though it
is a profit-making enterprise. Thus it joins other private firms such as Urban Ore in Berkeley,
California,as a bottom-line oriented company which includes the environment and community
as part of its bookkeeping.
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Positive Development
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