Canton, Ohio, nonprofit helps divert building materials for reuse

Stock Pile, a Canton, Ohio-based nonprofit that diverts building materials from landfills and sells them at a discount to low- and moderate-income individuals, has leveraged its connections with retail stores and residents to address waste and housing problems. 

Building material waste is generated through demolitions, accidental damaging of materials in the construction process or overestimating the materials needed for a project. Jarringly, 75 percent of the building materials thrown away still have residual value, meaning they have the potential to be recycled, writes Laney King, a guest columnist for the Canton Repository. 

In 1988, Stark County Regional Planning Commission employee Brenda Mahan recognized this staggering waste. She founded the Stock Pile, inventing a recycling scheme that allowed low- to moderate-income homeowners to affordably elevate their dilapidated homes. 

Since 2008, when The Stock Pile began collecting data, this scheme has diverted 3,736 tons of building materials from landfills and resold them to 2,739 low-to-moderate-income families.

Historically, The Stock Pile has relied on community members’ donations. But today, thanks to a new van made possible with funding from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, The Stock Pile is sourcing from home improvement retail stores.

The company has worked with major brands like Lowe’s, which generates around 924,000 tons of total waste annually. The Stock Pile travels across the state to various Lowe’s locations to collect dented, scratched and lightly damaged appliances and overstock flooring, plumbing, furniture and more. 

“We live in a throwaway society. Why are we like this? There’s still so much use left,” says The Stock Pile Project Coordinator Kasie Atkins.

By selling these recycled materials at less than half the original retail price, The Stock Pile hopes to help address historical housing disparities in their community. For many homeowners, their home is the biggest item on their balance sheet, and depending on the condition of the home, the homeowner may not be able to leverage the value for a meaningful loan to implement repairs.

The story gets worse for Black owners of substandard homes. In his investigation of housing disparities in Stark County, Richard Harper, field representative in the office of Congresswoman Emilia Sykes, found that the Home Owners Loan Corp., which was a New Deal agency tasked with issuing mortgages based on neighborhood desirability, gave predominantly Black Canton neighborhoods D ratings. This rating blocked Black homeowners from securing home improvement loans or cashing in on the full value of their houses, Laney writes. 

“Because these injustices exist, we [the Stock Pile] need to exist,” says Atkins, highlighting how she has watched blighted neighborhoods in Stark County become revitalized as residents share how they can now afford their new patio furniture or a front door.