Urban Miners is a salvage company out of Connecticut. It is run by Joe DeRisi, a very knowledgeable ecologist in the salvage industry.
His business model caters to the middle class. It isn’t a boutique model catering to a select few. If he pulls materials out of a middle class 1920’s home he wants the current middle class family to be able to afford his salvaged material.
This is an exception to the normal salvage companies that you might find in Manhattan for example, who sell their trinkets at a premium. But this is not to say Joe is losing money. What he loses in profit margins he makes up in volume. And his contribution to spreading awareness of salvaged materials is invaluable.
Check out the site. Good stuff.
I like his company name. It is very similar to two constant sayings we have at Eco Brooklyn:
The City Provides and Harvest the City. As green builders in Brooklyn we are constantly going on foraging runs to various dumpsters and junk yards. The abundance is a wonderful thing. In the early morning we’ll need some plywood, a bunch of flooring and a couple stacks of bricks. By late morning we’ll already be hard at work building with the materials, courtesy of the city’s abundance.