An Edmonton-based company is pioneering a new approach to urban construction waste, transforming timber from the city's aging buildings into a reliable supply of lumber for new projects. Backroads Reclamation Ltd. is focusing its efforts on the inner city, where a wave of densification is leading to the demolition of many older homes.
From Barns to City Blocks: Salvaging Edmonton's Architectural History
Founded by Jay Sanderson, Backroads Reclamation is working to industrialize the process of reclaiming wood. The company sources material from diverse locations, including former Northlands stables, century-old homes, and historic sites like Fort Edmonton Park. While artisans have long used such wood for unique tables and beams, Sanderson envisions a much larger-scale application.
"We're creating an infrastructure, and I would call it an inevitable infrastructure," Sanderson stated in an interview. His goal is to establish consistent standards for reclaimed product in collaboration with local architects, creating a formal supply chain from demolition sites directly to new construction projects.
The business model capitalizes on Edmonton's ongoing urban transformation. "There's tonnes of houses coming down in the inner city because of the densification initiatives," Sanderson explained. "And so by focusing on inner city, there's a budget to remove buildings and the quality of material that's locked away in the inner city homes prior to 1960 is basically what we're after."
The Scale of Waste and a Vision for Reuse
The push for large-scale reclamation addresses a significant environmental problem. Research by Kaia Nielsen-Raine, a University of British Columbia PhD student, highlights the issue. Her 2023 master's thesis on wood waste in Metro Vancouver found that wood constitutes the majority of construction and demolition material sent to landfills.
Nielsen-Raine's study noted that of 1.7 million tonnes of such waste, very little is used for value-added purposes. "The vast majority of it goes to landfill. And if it is recycled, it's all thermal recycling or hog fuel, so it just gets burnt for energy, which isn't the worst recycling use, but it's also the end of the line in terms of value," she said.
Inspired by a sustainability principle of planning for seven generations, her "Seven Generations Wood Project" thesis explored how this waste stream could be redirected back into construction. This aligns directly with Sanderson's ambition for Backroads Reclamation to move beyond small artisan projects.
Building an Industrial System for a Circular Economy
Sanderson's interest in reclaimed wood began with helping a relative dismantle a barn. Now, instead of searching rural Alberta for old barn lumber, he finds a richer source in Edmonton's own neighbourhoods. Alberta's high volume of construction and deconstruction activity makes it an ideal testing ground for this model.
The company's plan involves establishing a systematic process to salvage wood at an industrial level, treat it, and reintroduce it into the supply chain as a certified product for builders. This represents a shift towards a circular economy for building materials, where waste from old structures becomes the primary resource for new ones.
While Sanderson still values and supplies the artisanal market, his primary focus is scaling up. The vision is to create a local operation that can reliably process reclaimed wood, offering builders a sustainable and historically rich alternative to newly harvested timber, and ensuring that Edmonton's architectural legacy lives on in its future cityscape.
