WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Recycling a Restaurant

Recycling a Restaurant

South Burlington, Vermont - June 18, 2009

Piece by piece, an old restaurant building is coming down in South Burlington.

It's not demolition but deconstruction.

"We have had lots and lots of curiosity about what's going on here," said Scott Rieley with Rieley Properties.

The idea-- reuse items like old barn board and recycle what you can.

"The pavement outside is going to be pulled up ground up and recycled," explained Rieley.

For builder Scott Rieley this was a new idea his partner pushed. They are tearing down the former Perry's Fish House Restaurant and building a new Goodwill shop nearby.

"This is a difficult project to do," said Rieley, "because most of the time developers are rebuilding on the same site and don't have the luxury of slowly recycling a building. We do in this case and we are trying to take advantage of it."

While it takes longer, Rieley says knocking the building down-- or carefully tearing it apart-- costs about the same; around $50,000-$70,000.

Some of the salvaged items don't need to go that far to be reused. They're going to be put into the new Goodwill building next door; items like electrical wiring, also ceiling lights and several bathroom fixtures.

"This is becoming a little bit more commonplace; deconstruction, as opposed to straight demolition," said Buzz Suwilo with the State Solid Waste Management Program.

Suwilo says one-third of all trash comes from construction demolition. To cut back on that, the state is offering technical assistance, grant money, and certain large projects have to submit a waste management plan. But this project was voluntary, the builder called the state on his own.

"It's turning out to be a successful project," said Suwilo, "environmentally preferable and economically feasible and so it's disproving a lot of theories out there."

And when it's done, almost everything will find a new use. Even scrap wood will be ground up and used for fuel to make power in Burlington.

"It's the right thing to do these days," said Rieley.

There will be a garage sale in July for salvaged items. The date has yet not been set. The builder says because of the tough economy though, a lot is already spoken for; people are looking for a deal.

Kristin Carlson - WCAX News