We were re-cycling when few ever thought about it!
The following article was printed in 1971 and is included here for interest. We were a
6 year old Company and looking for new and unique methods of supplying builders and
renovators with brick and masonry product. The city of Hamilton had begun widening York
Street at Dundurn from a 2 lane road to a much larger arterial road. This meant that huge
numbers of old brick homes needed to be demolished. The brick from these homes were taken
down by bulldozers and backhoes and taken away in dump trucks to be used for fill down at
the Bay.
Most of the brick was still in excellent shape even after having been roughly handled
and dumped and the original mortar came off easily with a brick hammer. The brick quality
was sound, and it looked great when a brick mason laid it back up again.
Enter our founder John F. Meehan, known to everyone as "Jack". He had a
fantastic group of energetic and hard working employees and partners who saw the potential
for re-cycling brick!
Instead of bulldozing the brick, we developed a network of "Brick Chippers",
hard working people who carefully peeled the brick from the walls, chipped off the mortar
and piled it onto the skids for removal to our yard in Burlington. Throughout the 70's and
80's we reclaimed brick from all over Southern Ontario as far west as Kincardine, east to
Scarborough and south to Niagara Falls. We have distributed literally millions and
millions of Reclaimed brick since the late 60's and still distribute it today.