BRING looks to grow.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

The scrappy operators at BRING Recycling have just finished development plans for the $1.6 million build-out at their Glenwood site - in case they can hitch a ride on the federal stimulus gravy train.

Although the organization has little in its building fund, Executive Director Julie Daniel signed a development agreement with the city of Springfield that requires that construction start within two years - although Daniel is determined to get going this summer.

It would be a precarious position for many organizations, but BRING has a history of making a lot from a little.

"In the parlance of the times, we are in fact shovel ready. BRING is shovel ready," Daniel said. "We've completed our site plan, and our site modification plan, and we're very clear where we're going. We can move really quickly."

BRING opened its $2 million Planet Improvement Center in 2007 on a 3-acre wedge of land hard against the railroad tracks south of Franklin Boulevard.

Operators now hope to double the size of the present operation with the new development. Plans include a second open-air retail pavilion that will increase BRING's sales floor by about 70 percent.

The building materials resale center needs more elbow room, Daniel said.

The number of people buying recycled wares increased to 105 per day last year, up 20 percent from the daily traffic during the agency's first year at its Planet Improvement Center.

The next phase of construction includes creation of a public plaza where students from preschool to college can gather for educational events.

The plans call for covering the back half of the property (the wide end of the wedge) with permeable and impermeable paving, because now it's either a bog in the winter or a dust bowl in the summer, Daniel said. "Here we have all of this space and we cannot use it."

The contractor also will ready the ground for the "Garden of Earthly Delights," an outdoor demonstration area to show BRING shoppers how to marry reused materials with artistic endeavors.

"When you're not going to use a window as a window or a door as a door there's all kinds of creative reuse in the garden - old broken ladders for trellises, old windows for cold frames and greenhouses and all that very creative stuff that can be done," Daniel said.

But the biggest boon to BRING operations would happen outside of the public realm during the planned build-out. Under the plan, new buildings will house a materials sorting and deconstruction area.

"We're still doing materials processing in very crude conditions, basically outside, in the rain," Daniel said. For example, BRING crews disassemble aluminum windows to recycle the frames and to prepare the panes for recutting for customer projects.

Crews also take care of old, five-gallon porcelain flush toilets that are donated to BRING. "There's a limited reuse market for water hog toilets. We end up taking off the metal parts, smashing them up and sending the porcelain to the county for daily cover on the landfill.

"Those are messy, labor-intensive, space-taking tasks that we're performing outdoors right now that need to go undercover. We need a separation between the public part of BRING and the back end. We're building our back end."

Daniel would have liked to have started construction before this, but the depth of a recession that's 16 months long and counting is a lousy time for a capital campaign. "This is not an easy time to get your major donors to commit to multiyear pledges," she said.

So Daniel is pitching BRING's vision as a perfect fit for President Obama's green-job stimulus initiative and Gov. Ted Kulongoski's sustainability agenda for state-guided federal stimulus dollars.

"There's $67 billion dollars. And, based on that, Oregon would get 1 percent - that's $67 million - but these are competitive grants, so the state that can make a compelling case is going to get more than its due, so to speak," Daniel said.

If Oregon succeeds in drawing the stimulus big bucks, BRING's building project would be a good place for some of them to go, Daniel said.

"Our compelling case is we closely match the goals of the Obama administration in terms of creating transformational projects that create long-term change in a community, create jobs, produce an economic development benefit, reduce carbon emissions and reduce energy needs. We, of course, meet easily all those kinds of criteria."

BRING keeps more than 1,000 tons of leftover building materials out of the landfill annually, Daniel said. While reuse and recycling may not seem as sexy as wind or solar power, it's as energy-rich, she said.

"When materials are either reused or recycled, there's an enormous energy savings that's in those materials - what's called embodied energy," Daniel said. "When you put in a used window instead of a new window, assuming the insulation isn't an issue, you're not taking the amount of energy needed to make a new window. It's a good energy savings."

The BRING project would meet state and federal goals by creating jobs.

Chambers Construction, the general contractor, would hire 30 to 40 tradespeople during the four- or five-month construction period, Chambers Project Manager Dave Hoffman said.

"Electricians, they're going to supply four or five people; and then the site work guys, the concrete people and the plumbers - the full gamut, the site work people to the painters," he said.

Upon completion, BRING would expand its 20-person labor force, Daniel said. "Eventually we would need from two to four more people to just run the place," she said.

Daniel's pitch for stimulus dollars has reached the ears of the state Economic Recovery Executive Team, which is ensconced in a "war room" in Salem combing through all the latest federal stimulus opportunities on behalf of Oregon agencies, such as BRING, team spokeswoman Courtney Warner said.

While the economic times are hard for a lot of retail groups, as American consumers tighten their spending, enterprises based on thrift, such as BRING, are having a field day.

"Certainly, we are a business for our times," Daniel said. "In a down economy like this, in a recession, there are people who have more time than money. That's in favor of a reuse store like us. People are more willing to take the extra time it takes to work with used materials."

BRING IT HOME

BRING Recycling is staging a tour of Eugene-Springfield homes that exhibit artistic reuse and green features.

When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 26

Information: [phone] or www.bringrecycling.org