An incredible amount of useful lumber is sent to the landfill every day. The EPA estimates that the U.S. sends over 10 million tons of wood to the landfill annually and this number is growing. That is approximately the equivalent of 10 million trees or 200,000 acres of healthy forest and habitat.

We need more solutions to reuse lumber. 

If you look in renovation and construction dumpsters in your neighborhood, you will see for yourself. This is a big problem. Contractors don't have time or space to deal with all the useful lumber that gets tossed in dumpsters. 

To address this problem, we started hauling lumber from dumpsters home to see if we could sell it. 2 years and many transactions later we know there's a great market for the seemingly endless supply of good lumber that would be in the landfill if not for us. This is a fulfilling, good paying gig that many people could do. We have made many friends and connections and now get most of our lumber before it goes in the dumpster. We started LumberStash, a growing network of work from home lumber salvage services. We use our yard, garage and or driveway to temporarily store salvaged lumber until it sells. Because we have very little overhead (no warehouse or storefront) we can salvage many types of useful lumber that you won't find in a store because the floor space is too expensive. Also because we have very little overhead we are able to earn a good wage while selling at great prices. We currently have 1 full time worker, 5 gig workers and 4 from home locations saving 1-2 tons of lumber from the landfill EVERY WEEK.

- This is a living wage paying, flexible gig that can be great for families. 

- We're just getting started and we are keeping over 1 ton of lumber from the landfill every week.

- Rescuing local lumber and selling it keeps money in our local economy.

- Rather than a large organization and big warehouse, this model would allow smaller inventories to be spread out, just like the lumber we salvage. This reduces the distance our reclaimed lumber needs to be hauled. 

- We give away lots of lumber and sell at great prices which is great for low income families and people on a budget. 

Recently, Minneapolis made us aware that selling salvaged lumber from home is illegal. To rescue all of this good lumber from the landfill legally, one of the first steps would be paying a landlord or buying commercial space. The extra cost and travel time involved with a commercial space would make what we do impossible. 

We’re happy to ensure that we do not bother neighbors with excess traffic or noise. We know that many neighbors greatly appreciate what we're doing. 

Selling salvaged lumber from home can be a major part of the solution to reduce lumber waste and help our forests. It could become the largest part of the solution. It should be legal. 

The people signing this petition ask that city council partner with us to make selling salvaged lumber from home legal.

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