Re: [papercreters] Re: Learn all about Sustainability

Ten years ago I was in a bad wreck and had to get out of the recycling biz.
Just before that I was driving through Houston on the way to
Providence to buy a building in North Providence and out of the corner
of my eye I saw a demolisher's truck parked in front of the old Kirby
Plantation House. Kirby's son was the owner of Kirby Lumber , the
second largest lumber company in the U.S. during the most of the
20th century, the only one larger was Weyerhaeuser.
The Plantation house was built by his father before the Civil War.
When I got down to the house they had knocked part of the parlor down
and I grabbed a 2x4 {actually 2" x 4" ) and it was the hardest and
most beautiful pine I had ever seen. It was so hard that if you hit it
with a hammer it rang like a bell and if you put a rag in someones
hands and had them close their eyes they thought they were holding a
brick, it was that heavy.
The wallboards were clear California Redwood that was tongued and
grooved with a hand plane. I could have sold the material from that
house for at least 60k . I spent a great deal of my life salvaging
these commercially extinct materials and it blew me away.

I offered to tear down the building , take everything, salvageable and
non salvageable and grade the lot for free. I asked for a month but
they only gave me a week so I had to let it go to the landfill , I am
still upset about it. These materials will never exist again, they are
irreplaceable. The pine in that house had no see'um rings. You needed
a magnifying glass to count them. The trees were at least 600 years
old and may have been well over 1000 when they were cut and no timber
man can wait even 1 century to harvest trees anymore and for it to be
of any use at all heart yellow pine needs a minimum of 200 years.

I think the developers would be better off to give guys like me the
time required to salvage the materials and advertise the fact they are
saving these rare materials and keeping it out of landfills. There
needs to be a dialogue, communication.

If any tax credits are given they should be supervised by the State
and local Representatives, not given to Habitat like groups. Maybe
giving one to the developers to offset their cost of waiting to begun
construction would make sense but I think education would be better.




On 8/8/12, Christine Baker <christine@bayhouse.com> wrote:
> Very interesting.
>
>>There needs to be a dialoge with the cities
>>giving demolisher's a reasonable time period to salvage old buildings.
>>More recycle friendly codes to help the reuse of
>>building materials from demo sites and things like papercrete .
>
> Fairbanks, Alaska, had at least two public
> recycling sites where people could drop off all
> kinds of appliances, furniture, toys, whatever
> ... and anyone could go through it and take what
> they wanted. In Fairbanks "somebody"
> (volunteers?) sorted through everything so it
> was all organized. That's the coolest recycling system I've seen yet.
>
> Around here, Kingman Arizona, NO SALVAGING signs
> are at the dump and recycling is limited to glass, paper, etc.
>
> I totally agree with your analysis,
>
> Christine
>
> At 08:38 PM 8/8/2012, you wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>--- In
>><mailto:papercreters%40yahoogroups.com>papercreters@yahoogroups.com,
>>Pam Cole <honeyland12@...> wrote:
>> >
>> > Thank u very much Packy
>> >
>> >
>> > Thank you
>> > Pam
>>
>>Sustainability
>>
>>It should mean the use of a resource that does not deplete it.
>>
>>Papercrete and Rice Hulls are sustainable.
>>
>>I spent 15 years salvaging old buildings and
>>saved millions of board feet of heart pine,
>>maple flooring , hardwoods , red and white pine,
>>Douglas Fir and masonry such as roofing tiles and bricks.
>>My experience with people like Habitat for
>>Humanity is that they have a blank check to
>>write tax credits to demolishers and the sell
>>the easily removable items like clawfoot tubs
>>and pedestal sinks then abandon the
>>irreplaceable heart pine to the landfill because
>>they NEVER use recycled wood. The guys like me
>>who took down the structures and used pneumatic
>>nail pullers and back muscles saved almost ever
>>stick but once the goodies were gone paying
>>Habitat for the salvage rights represented an
>>increase of 400$ and put us all out of that business.
>>The EPA flew me up to Hartford to do a speech on
>>recycling because one of the managers saw that
>>money had to be made to make a difference in the
>>waste stream. He was the only one it seems. At
>>first I was a big hit but then they asked me
>>where I got my grants and I told them I used
>>pieces of paper with Grants picture I saved up.
>>They were horrified that I had committed the sin
>>of profiteering off mother earth and even worse I actually did something.
>>
>>My experience with people in positions of power
>>who push sustainability are only interested in
>>bankrupting America through outrageous energy
>>prices and they hate anyone who applies the
>>capitalist system to the problem because it is
>>the only one that works. They have no interest
>>in the environment , just scaring people out of
>>using so called "fossil fuels" and trying to
>>force unworkable alternatives regardless of whether we can pay for it or
>> not.
>>
>>I have personally kept more out of the waste
>>stream than Tuscaloosa Alabama in one year and
>>they have a billboard congratulating themselves.
>>
>>Instead of sustainability why not find out from
>>those who actually do something what needs to be done.
>>There needs to be a dialoge with the cities
>>giving demolisher's a reasonable time period to salvage old buildings.
>>More recycle friendly codes to help the reuse of
>>building materials from demo sites and things like papercrete .
>>
>>In Houston there is a historic hotel called the
>>Rice. I sourced 186,00 square feet, over 6 acres
>>of antique maple flooring which I believe was
>>the largest re installation of wood flooring in history.
>>We either sourced or resourced and installed 4
>>other project of over 100,000 square feet in
>>Houston, Dallas, and Brooklyn ,New York and
>>hundreds of smaller buildings and houses as well as our wholesale
>> business.
>><http://downtownhouston.org/guidedetail/post-rice-lofts/>http://downtownhouston.org/guidedetail/post-rice-lofts/
>>
>>
>


--
Forrest Charnock


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