Pittsburgh has battled the notion that the city is a dirty dusty polluted old steel mill town since the 1950’s, and finally it seems that the world is catching up with Pittsburgh’s environmental friendly initiatives. As a fighter in the battle to make Pittsburgh greener, Construction Junction in Point Breeze will turn 15 on November 12th, marking the changes that Pittsburgh has been making to respect the environment.
Construction Junction is a reuse store and its main mission is “diverting re-usable materials from the landfill” by accepting thousands of types of donations and then repurposing them to be resold at a discounted rate.
The company started off humbly.
“It was really hard to get things moving, really hard to get donations. I think we originally our first year we ended doing business maybe around a couple thousand dollars. Last year we were able to do somewhere around 1.4-1.5 million dollars in sales, so we’ve grown quite a lot in that time,” said Construction Junction’s General Manager Derek Stoltz.
Stoltz has been with the company for 7 years and says it has made a lot of changes over the years. He says the company now has a recycling effort. They have recycling dumpsters outside of the store, and accept electronics which sometimes cannot be recycled though regular pickup (such as TV’s).
And the company has started a job training program through Goodwill.
“We bring in individuals with disabilities and we teach them math skills, how to use tape measurers, calculators, how to process all of the hardware. So they’re getting an extensive amount of training on site to hopefully either get employment here, or to move on and get a better chance of employment elsewhere,” said Stoltz.
Construction Junction also brings in individuals who have gaps in their resumes, or have recently been incarcerated, with the same job training initiative.
The company will celebrate this milestone Wednesday.
“[This is] to thank all of our long dedicated customers, and all of the new ones that keep coming into our door,” said Stoltz.
