Logo: Unified Wood Economy

PROJECT

Pittsburgh Wood Project

Pittsburgh,
 Pennsylvania
Man with baseball cap and Unified Wood Economy tshirt picking up boards of wood in a woodshop
Construction Junction The Reclaim Project R.K. Mellon Foundation Landforce Michael Bros. Hauling & Recycling Greater Pitt Tree Service PA Department of Conservation & Natural Resources
Nearly Complete

Pittsburgh is the "Steel City" but with the decline of the steel industry, many of Pittsburgh's surrounding boroughs are experiencing significant economic downturns. The loss of jobs has resulted in a loss of population and vacant properties. What if solving one problem could help solve the other?

The Problem

In Beaver County, just northwest of Pittsburgh, boroughs like Aliquippa, Midland and the city of Beaver Falls have hundreds of vacant properties which are a blight to the community and contribute to the devaluation of real estate, create health hazards, and often harbor unwanted activity. The economic challenges not only contribute to the problem of growing vacancy, but also produce rising unemployment rates. These communities are often disconnected from opportunities for employment due to geography, transportation challenges, and barriers such as former incarceration.

The problem is twofold: We need to remove the vacant properties and we need to create jobs for individuals with barriers to employment. Adding to the challenge is doing this in a financially sustainable way.

Our Solution

In 2022-2024, UWE worked with The Reclaim Project to train returning citizens from incarceration in the needed skills to deconstruct vacant buildings as well as wrap-around job readiness training. By partnering with Construction Junction, a robust reuse store on the Southeast side, we built a supply chain to capture the valued materials coming from deconstruction and demolition projects and process them into products ready for the marketplace.

Boards of reclaimed wood on carts in a woodshop

40 houses in the three municipalities are part of a current deconstruction pilot. As the project wraps up, UWE is exploring other boroughs seeking to utilize federal resources to remove their vacant properties and create jobs for returning citizens. In addition to the wood coming from the reclaimed project, UWE is assessing the possibility of aggregating fallen wood from the greater Pittsburgh area (especially less dense areas to the north of the city) to establish a wood upcycling campus. This expansion opportunity would contribute to a scalable solution for capturing carbon, creating jobs, and diverting thousands of tons of wood from county landfills in the region.

"With our early engagement with Jeff Carrol and Unified Wood Economy, we have had the ability to provide a business model that not only makes sense but enabled our start-up to raise the needed funding to launch the project."
Chuck Verrett | Visionary and Co-Founder, The Reclaim Project