Turning garbage into gold

Canada is in the midst of a garbage crisis. We produce roughly 700 kg of garbage per person, per year, generating more municipal solid waste per capita than any other country on Earth.

The rare time Canadians do talk about our garbage crisis, we tend to focus on post-consumer waste: the packaging attached to everything we buy, and the disused items we throw away. But another major source of waste in Canada is construction and demolition. On average, 84 per cent of construction waste ends up in a landfill.

But there is a business model that can turn this garbage into gold. And it's not new or novel. David Behan owns Demxx Deconstruction in Coombs, B.C., on Vancouver Island. Demxx takes debris from demolition sites and sorts through it to find salvageable material to resell, largely to be used in things like sheds and chicken coops. 

And while businesses like his could be part of the answer to our waste issue, there are still a few barriers to his model taking off. 

He took a minute to explain to us how his business works and why he thinks more people are not jumping onto this lucrative and environmentally-friendly industry.

CBC: So what does Demxx do? 

DB: Demxx sells new and used building materials, furniture, and home décor. We repurpose material, as well as just resell materials in the shape we get them. We do take building materials off buildings that are coming down. That means windows, doors, cabinets, counters, railings, electrical panels, hot water tanks, furnaces, things like that. 

CBC: And you do this because there's money in it?

DB: It is for purely economic reasons. The environment is a side benefit to it. If we didn't have an economic reason to do it, we would not do it.

CBC: How did you get into this?

DB: I used to be a builder and developer. And in 2011 I was going bankrupt. I kept growing and growing and growing, and then 2008 came along, and by 2011 I could no longer hang on. So I was very familiar with the business and when I looked at the financials that [the previous owner] had, I saw there was a metric there that could work for us.

CBC: So can I buy a window from you and put it in my house?

DB: An old window isn't code-compliant on a new build today. A new window is code-compliant. You can use a used window on your garage, chicken coop, cowshed, garden shed or greenhouse, but you can't use it in new construction. 

CBC: What are the challenges you face in this business?

DB: The labour standards, the concerns around asbestos, lead paint, things like that. The economics of [demolition] are such that when they take a building down, it's cheaper to take it down with a machine, load it up into a truck and take it to the dump. That's the biggest problem. We can't depend on a reliable supply of used materials anymore. That used to be all that Demxx did. Now we sell new and used materials. There's a market out there. No doubt about it. But we can't have a big enough supply or a consistent enough supply to just sell used.

CBC: Do you think we'll see a renewal in business like yours as we start to think more about how much garbage we create?

DB: I think it's a dying breed, and the reason for that is land values and local governments. They don't zone enough industrial land for outdoor sales. And because there's not enough industrial zoned land, the value of it increases exponentially. It just basically pushes it out. There was a few of them in Vancouver. One of them just sold last year to a lumber yard, and they got a good dollar for that. And they retired and got out of the business.

Edited for length and clarity. Watch Good People, now on CBC Gem.