As chief operating officer of Community Forklift, Meyer applies her background as a carpenter and longtime nonprofit executive at the construction materials nonprofit outside of Hyattsville.
What do you all do?
We have a 34,000-square-foot warehouse and we collect salvage and surplus building materials, in part to prevent them from being dumped in the landfill and to encourage the reusing of materials and recovering their value. … Then we resell them with a focus on reselling them to low-income communities, as well as providing them to nonprofits and other folks who might need them.
The economy has slowed down construction but also brought out the do-it-yourselfers eager for bargains. How has that affected Community Forklift?
On one hand, you’re right — construction has slowed down, and so there has been some diminishment in the availability of surplus materials. But people are still doing work. And I think there are some people who, instead of selling properties, are renovating. … So people are taking stuff out and needing to get rid of it and looking for other materials to replace them.
When a home is deconstructed, how much can be salvaged and reused?
A significant amount of the materials can be recovered and reused. Everything from … floors and appliances and light fixtures and so forth, right down to the actual two-by-fours and plywood.
What’s the most unusual stuff you sell?
We have some tollbooths. … There’s no telling on any given day what kind of peculiar things might arrive.
Have you ever contributed to the materials or used any yourself?
I have purchased tools. … I also see things on the street and bring them to work. … Or I come home and on my steps is a box of tile or an old window. … The good thing is I wind up taking more over than what I wind up taking home.
– Kytja Weir
