Seattle opens its first warehouse for salvaged lumber 37%
By Ayeda Masood0%
5/1/2026, 11:32:12 PM
Topics: Business, Government
BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Appeal to Authority, and Optimism Bias, with Unattributed Quote as the most egregious example at 28.8% saturation with 150 hits. Analysis detected 851 faulty-reasoning hits from 520 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 43.6% and a BS Rank of 37% (10,596 of 16,813 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 63.00% of the article peer group.
The city of Seattle opened its first warehouse for salvaged lumber Friday in SoDo.
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson cut a red wood “ribbon” with a chainsaw to mark the occasion.
The warehouse, operated by Earthwise Architectural Salvage, will serve as a place where lumber from the demolition or renovation of buildings is collected and sold for new construction, or to make furniture and other DIY projects.
“Reuse is better than recycling,” said Katie Kennedy, the Seattle Public utilities manager who helped obtain the grant for the city.
“You are displacing the need for new materials.”
In addition to saving trees from being cut down for new lumber, the project is aimed at reducing waste and emissions.
According to Kennedy, old lumber either ends up in the dump or else is sent to processors, who might use it as “hog fuel” to burn at places like paper mills.
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The project is being funded by a $4 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The money dates back to the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684" target="_blank">2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act</a>, which set aside $275 million for <a href="https://www.epa.gov/circulareconomy/solid-waste-infrastructure-recycling-grants-states-and-territories" target="_blank">solid waste recycling infrastructure projects</a>.
<a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-09/City_of_Seattle_SWIFR.pdf" target="_blank">The city of Seattle received its award</a> in 2023 and brought on Earthwise, a salvage company which operates retail warehouses throughout Washington, to lead it.
Even as the Trump administration has reduced EPA grants to states, funding for this program has not been affected, according to Dan Halpert, who leads one of the EPA’s solid waste recycling infrastructure grants programs.
“We work very hard to show that we are good stewards of this money, that the money is going in line with federal regulations and federal grant policy.
We’ve been able to show the success of the program,” Halpert said.
According to Halpert, Seattle’s lumber salvage project is the only one of its kind in the country supported by the federal grant program.
The new warehouse is filled with piles of old lumber, from salvaged floor joists from the old Aberdeen Armory, to old growth Douglas fir decking from a South Seattle manufacturing plant.
“This is the heritage lumber that we are obsessed with around here,” said Aaron Blanchard, director of operations at Earthwise.
“The best way to honor this finite and irreplaceable old growth wood is to make it into something beautiful and useful so it can last another century.”
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Seattle has an active community of salvage operations, but making it sustainable for businesses has been a challenge for these companies, according to Andrew Lee, general manager of Seattle Public Utilities.
“Like any effort towards making our planet more sustainable, our goal of creating a local wood reuse economy requires support,” Lee said.
The $4 million grant will help pay for the warehouse’s setup, and its first three years of operation.
After that, Earthwise, and the city, anticipate it will become self-sufficient.
The warehouse opens to the public this weekend.
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