My first job was that of a home-wrecker. No not the Jesse James and Michelle “Bombshell” McGee or the John Edwards and Rielle Hunter type. Actually, I was the six year-old with a short-handed sledgehammer type—ultimately a little more dangerous.

You see my father was looking for ways to supplement his income and the idea of tearing down houses and salvaging building materials appealed to him. And since my older brother was away at military school and my sisters lacked any real whacking power or desire, I was appointed head assistant of the newly-formed salvage company. Yahoo.

We went gang-busters for the first few hours of the first day, but it turns out that the soles of little black and red Roy Rogers cowboy boots are scant protection against rusty nails protruding from bashed boards and busted beams. And pre-adolescent boys are often too wrapped up in the fun of swinging a sledgehammer and knocking down walls to notice where they place their feet. (I know these two facts from multiple experiences.)

So our little enterprise died a quick and certain death after my father calculated the cost of doctor’s visits and tetanus shots into his binder paper spreadsheet. I think he carried on a little bit by himself but his dream of a Ferris & Son salvage operation was further smashed when my mom instituted our own localized version of child labor laws and a family-wide occupational safety and health standard.

But the salvage and reuse bug has stuck with me and now I haunt salvage yards and thrift shops and I love the growing trend in ReStores. These are wonderful places to hang out and see treasure where others saw trash and at the same time reduce the flow of still useful building to landfills. I am always impressed with these entities and the hard work of their volunteers and staff members. They all do a wonderful job and provide invaluable services.

But I found one organization that does a little bit more…they actually do make house calls. The folks at The ReStore operations in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington (http://www.re-store.org) will come by residential and commercial sites to pick up qualifying building materials for free and they will even—for a modest fee—complete deconstruction and salvage of materials that would normally be bound for a dump (http://tinyurl.com/2dc7ahj).

In an average year the employees and staff at RE-Store short-stop 4 million pounds of materials from getting into the waste stream. So what? Imagine a three mile long line of compact cars parked end-to-end. Got that in your mind? That is roughly 4 million pounds.

The ReStore with its proactive approach is a real game changer. How so? Imagine you are contemplating remodeling an older structure or have bought a building that actually needs to be torn down. Chances are you are looking at significant costs associated with deconstruction, dumping, hauling, and construction. But if you have materials that are salvageable and reusable, an organization like The ReStore can take those materials off your hands and then hand you a receipt for a tax deductible donation.

And it gets better as the proceeds from the sale of your materials—in this instance—goes to support not only The ReStore but the parent group RE Sources for Sustainable Communities (http://www.re-sources.org or http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/RE-Sources-for-Sustainable-Communities/273621461347?ref=ts) too. So your old door, funky faucets, or not quite up-to-date cabinets are translated into program funding for environmental education programs (http://www.re-sources.org/programs/the-education-team), work on climate change (http://imcool.info), and the North Sound Baykeeper (http://www.re-sources.org/programs/baykeeper). All of which are way better than stepping on rusty nails in thin-soled cowboy boots.