What is EcoBuilding Bargains?
What is EcoBuilding Bargains? Since its opening in 2001 EcoBuilding Bargains has become the largest used building materials store in New England. It supports CET’s mission by keeping thousands of tons of materials out of landfills. In 2019, we kept 222 tons of perfectly good materials from going to waste by offering them to our customers.
- How does EcoBuilding Bargains work?
- Embodied carbon adds up
- Why deconstruction matters
- Customer and community impacts
- Where to find us
How Does Ecobuilding Bargains Work?
EcoBuilding Bargains accepts donations of high-quality home improvement materials and sells them to the public at low prices in a convenient retail setting. We make the process incredibly easy for donors by offering a convenient free pick-up service, tax deductions, and savings on disposal costs. Not only do these donations save the environment, but they can also save donors and customers a significant amount of money!
Some of the top donors of materials are contractors and homeowners who have surplus materials from construction or deconstruction of a home. Deconstruction is the careful dismantling of a building to use its materials for re-use, repurposing, recycling, and waste management.
Why Deconstruction Matters
This careful deconstruction of homes to allow for the repurposing of building materials has many serious benefits to the environment:- Deconstruction reduces climate-altering greenhouse
- gas emissions from landfills and incinerators.
- It reduces the need for more toxic landfills. More and more landfills are needed as construction and demolition waste is on the rise. This debris counts for over half of all the U.S. solid waste.
- It reduces harmful effects of natural resource extraction, transportation, and energy consumption for new building materials.
- It recycles useable material for reuse and creative repurposing.
- It keeps material local, reducing additional adverse harvesting, mining and transportation effects.
Customer and Community Impacts
In addition to the impact of EcoBuilding Bargains’ waste diversion, the store is also making an impact by providing additional environmentally-friendly options for customers. For example, we sell a wide variety of LED light bulbs, home compost bins, and rain barrels. There are also cost-effective and earth-friendly paint options available that are made from recycled latex paints. EcoBuilding Bargains is continuing to flourish. Donations are at an all-time high, as are sales of repurposed material. We continue to make a significant environmental impact by reducing the amount of waste going into landfills and we are making a difference in Springfield by creating jobs, offering community programming space and activities, and providing quality products for customers at affordable prices. Stop on by the store to see what we’re all about and how you can be a part of making green make sense!
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