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The Independent Recyclers Council would like to highlight one of its members, Urban Ore in Berkeley, CA , as a prime example of the services provided by the reuse industry in an open competitive environment. .
Urban Ore 's business model combines a service business with a retail and a commodities business. Urban Ore 's primary service is ecological disposal for reusable goods. Retail sales feature what Arthur Boone calls "the back end of the GNP": building parts, hardware and tools, landscape materials, clothing, electronics, art, and a very big other. Commodities include nonferrous and ferrous metals, spent CRTs, window glass, cardboard, switches and capacitors, and ceramics.
Demand for both the service and the goods has grown steadily since our inception 26 years ago. We're open 10 1/2 hours per day, seven days a week.
At the service end, we take in things from all sorts of haulers through two specialized receiving departments. One is for building materials, the other for everything else. We pay for some, but not all, of these materials using both cash and redeemable trade credits, but probably the best service we provide haulers is an empty truck, or at least a reduced load for them to deliver to other disposal venues. Our in-house recycling department allows receivers to accept a broad range of scrap as well as reusables. Besides offering assisted unloading we also teach haulers to prepare their loads so they can have a fast and successful experience with us. As these diverse materials pass through receiving they are sorted, cleaned, priced, and placed into specialized sales areas. We do very little repair; that function is outsourced to our retail customers. Inventory turns fast, a function of careful attention to pricing and receiving's close liaison with sales staff.
Urban Ore 's Outside Trader Department offers curbside pickup and purchase within a 75 mile radius of our headquarters in Berkeley , California . Our Salvage and Recycling Department brings in tons of materials everyday from the tipping area at Berkeley 's refuse transfer station. Berkeley 's flat-floor transfer station offers a very good and safe work environment. We have performed labor-intensive salvage services for over two decades under license to the City. We comply with Berkeley 's Living Wage Ordinance, currently paying our workers a minimum wage that is about double the federal minimum.
Sales are organized into two broad divisions with specialized staffs and separate cash registers. Major sales areas in the Building Materials Exchange are devoted to doors, windows, wood, brick and block, garden, sinks, toilets, and tubs, and metal objects. The General Store features cabinets, sports and hardware, commercial and household furniture, clothing, electronics, books and paper goods, music, art and art supplies, and collectibles and antiques. Markets are robust for these materials. What we send to landfill amounts to less than 2% of what we receive; the residue is mostly plastics and wood.
We collect sales taxes on all retail sales; this currently generates $16,000 to $20,000 monthly to support state and local governments. We also collect and pay employment taxes and property taxes.
We have had an opportunity to change locations several times as we grew. Each time we move, we create teams of architects and hands-on employees and sometimes engineers to design our new location for improved performance. Because of this practical design experience, on occasion governments have asked us to do conceptual planning for zero waste or partial zero waste facilities, always incorporating reuse as a design and service element. We have worked for governments in several California Counties; the states of Hawaii , West Virginia , and Oregon ; and for numerous councils and other entities in Australia , New Zealand , and the UK . We have sometimes performed site evaluations for startup reuse companies. We organize these services under the aegis of Urban Ore Design Associates, a dba of Urban Ore, Inc.
Thanks for your interest in Urban Ore. We stand proudly as a business model that can be added to a very diverse reuse industry infrastructure already active in every community, but our real purpose is to End the Age of Waste.
By Dan Knapp,
President, Urban Ore
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