With Base Yard Hawai'i, everybody wins

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer

While recent news accounts have described overloaded landfills and illegal trash dumping, one Leeward company has quietly been at work keeping tons of material from reaching the dump zone in the first place.

George Tagura, middle, and Nainoa Lopes, of 'Ohana Telecom/Construction, unload doors at Base Yard Hawai'i's Sand Island facility. Paige Barber, left, heads Base Yard Hawai'i, a year-old construction-materials "re-use center." Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

"As you know, the economy here right now is pretty bad for low-income families," said Paige Barber, who heads Base Yard Hawai'i, a year-old construction-materials "re-use center" created to help low-income families and elderly people repair and renovate their homes using recycled construction materials.

"We have families that are desperate for materials."

Base Yard Hawai'i accepts virtually anything, including the kitchen sink, lumber, furniture, cabinets, paint, doors, frames, bricks, windows, flooring, drywall, lighting and plumbing fixtures. Most of what it takes in comes from contractors who wound up with excess materials.

About the only condition is that donated items have to be virtually new or in excellent condition.

"Otherwise, we don't want it," said Barber's husband, Bert, who manages the company's warehouse on Sand Island. "I go look at what is donated to make sure it's not junk. We don't take junk. We would just have to dispose of it ourselves, and we aren't equipped to do that."

Barber patterned Base Yard Hawai'i after The Loading Dock, the nation's first reusable construction and building materials program in Baltimore. The concept is simple: Take surplus lumber, paint, plumbing fixtures and other unused construction materials and match them with qualifying individuals who could use the stuff to fix their homes.

In addition to helping lower-income folks and sparing the landfills, the program has a third beneficiary: contractors, who can make a tax-deductible donation for materials that they might otherwise have to pay a disposal fee for at the dump, or simply let go to waste.

Base Yard Hawai'i literature asks contractors: "Do you have surplus construction materials ... have you thought of selling them but it has been two years and the stuff is still there ... have you thought of taking it to our already overcrowded landfills ... would you like to save money and do some good at the same time?"

Bert Barber, manager of Base Yard Hawai'i's Sand Island warehouse, stacks doors donated by Schuler Homes. The company accepts almost everything — except junk. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

"You order the material as part of the project costs," Watase said. "Then there's a project or specification change. So now you're not using the material. What do you do with it? You either throw it away, or it sits around your construction yard for five or 10 years rotting away.

"With something like this, the material gets put to good use."

If there's a downside, it's that sometimes Base Yard Hawai'i doesn't have the specific materials people need. And the center, like other nonprofit organizations, is strapped for money.

"We're an infant operation," Bert Barber said. "We depend on volunteer help."

In February, Barber's version of the concept was the charity of choice at the 9th Annual Home Building and Remodeling Show Tent Sale at the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall.

Suzanne Jones, recycling coordinator for the City & County of Honolulu, described Base Yard Hawai'i as part of a "growing network of organizations and people who are looking to move this sort of activity forward."

"There are other recycling programs that try to put materials back into the community," added Nalani Blain with the Building Industry Association of Hawai'i. "But Base Yard Hawaii is the only organization I know of that takes materials from contractors and uses those materials to rebuild community homes."