Build It Green!

If you're looking for building materials and want to do your part to reduce waste, look up Build It Green! NYC. Build It Green, New York City's only non-profit retail outlet for salvaged and surplus building materials, has over 75 tons of materials for sale, including doors, flooring, sinks and toilets, lighting, windows, trim, cabinets, and metal studs. Build It Green gets its salvaged materials from a variety of buildings about to be demolished in New York City. Surplus materials are donated by building suppliers and contractors interested in protecting the environment and reducing their waste.

Build It Green is sponsored by the Community Environmental Center (CEC), a non-profit organization that provides energy, building performance, green building, and environmental services for 1-4 family homes and residential, commercial, and institutional complexes. All proceeds help support CEC's environmental education programs at Solar One, the City's first solar-powered “Green Energy, Arts, and Education Center.”

If you're looking to donate materials, check out Build It Green's list of accepted items. Build It Green provides limited pick-up service for high quality kitchen cabinets sets and appliances with total original cost of over $3000 and for other high-value donations.

Upper East Side Eco-Apartment

Here's an example of the use of environmentally conscious materials in an Upper East Side apartment designed by David Bergman, Architect. The materials include glass tiles and resin panels (recycled), cork flooring and wheatboard cabinets (sustainably grown), and low-VOC paints.


The project was recently featured in Natural Home Magazine. And, according to the architect, the cost of the renovation was not increased by the use of these sustainable materials.