2018 Was A Busy Year, Let’s Keep Going Green In 2019!
Greetings Reuse Fans,
So it is that recap time of year…join me on a recap of reuse! 2018 was another eventful year for CJ. Here is my “top 10” for 2018 (not in order of importance):
- We received significant support to expand our Goodwill and Deconstruction job training programs
- We successfully completed the deconstruction of the solar house on CMU’s campus. in partnership with the Urban Design Build Studio, Carnegie Mellon, Rycon Construction, Dave Bennink of Reuse Consulting, Landforce and CJ’s Deconstruction crew
- CJ held our first successful Earth Month, which included partnering with a number of new green product suppliers. We will be expanding this in 2019.
- CJ made encouraging progress on introducing value added products into our retail product mix with our Constructed At The Junction items. The sale of these products supports carpentry expertise to work with the Urban Design Build program, Project RE_ and gives CJ capacity to demonstrate creative ways to use salvaged material.
- Continued development of the Studio Blue furniture painting project to engage youth at Shuman Juvenile Detention Center as well as programing for youth at CJ.
- Pittsburgh was selected to host the Building Material Reuse Association’s annual Decon + Reuse conference in November of 2019!
- Big Pour 12 netted $130,000 to support CJ operations, which also partially subsidize our tenants rent for Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse, Pillow Project, Computerreach, The Trade Institute of Pittsburgh, Project RE_ and our community outreach work.
- The Environmental Finance Collaborative (EFC) made the transition to our next shared Chief Financial Officer (formal announcement coming in the new year)
- We completed an updated version of Reuse Retail, our integrated technology system with mobile app, and presented the system at two national conferences.
While CJ continues to look for innovative opportunities and strategies to engage with new supporters of reuse, we continue to divert significant amounts of material from the landfill to reuse, as we enter our 20th year of operations here are a few notable metrics: Since 1999 we have diverted:
70,907 Doors ∙ 57,014 Cabinets ∙ 61,053 Plumbing Items ∙ 118,300 Lighting Items
Your continued support of our mission and the principles that we here at Construction Junction work to promote: sustainability, conservation, waste diversion, architectural preservation, DIY culture, job-skill development, and so much more, contributes to what makes our organization able to play an important role as a part of Pittsburgh, our community, and reuse everywhere!
