The Reclaimer Diverts Lumber From Near-Capacity Landfills

reclaimer wood repurposing

The Reclaimer provides a modest but very special service to the people of Los Angeles. They avert about 100,000 board feet of quality lumber from landfills each month, and resell the lumber to builders.

LA landfills are only about five years away from capacity. And about half a billion board feet of lumber each year take up a portion of that space. While The Reclaimer averts only a small amount of that lumber, it is quality, useable wood that not only stays out of landfills but also prevents the need to cut down trees.

They focus on pre-WWII buildings because they are usually constructed of large-cut boards of Douglas Fir. This takes much of the guessing game out of what quality and type of wood they’ll be getting. They then re-cut the wood for today’s standard board sizes and sell it to builders. About 15% of the wood, therefore, becomes sawdust – but they don’t let that go to waste either. That is re-used for things like horse bedding.

The lumber is beautiful woods – not just Douglas Fir, but also Heart Pine, Redwood, Maple and Oak – that is used for building, siding, flooring and other surfaces.

Featured at their booth at West Coast Green 2008 is another element to their business; The Reclaimer creates PLOGS – “protable living/office green structures” that are great for sheds, playhouses, small cabins and add-ons for homes. We may know some folks who would be quite happy calling one home.

PLOGS prefab shed photo