Tournament material gets recycled
The U.S. Bowling Congress brought in a construction crew last week to dismantle almost everything that the group built in the Baton Rouge River Center for its 2012 bowling championship tournament.
That included 45,000 feet of drywall, said Greg Moore, the USBC’s director of tournaments, planning and production.
The bowling group built offices, walls, bowling equipment vendor booths and a merchandising store for the 151-day tournament.
On Tuesday, volunteers with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge were packing up flatbed trucks with plywood and two-by-fours gathered from the dismantling of the USBC’s temporary facilities at the River Center.
The lumber donated to the Baton Rouge nonprofit organization will be resold to the public at its ReStore on Airline Highway to raise money, Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Lynn Clark said Tuesday.
Clark said she hopes to sell about $25,000 worth of donated lumber to the public.
Moore said the lumber the bowling congress has donated to the Habitat group is about enough to build two, three-bedroom houses.
Moore said the city-parish and others paid the bowling congress a hosting fee to help land the tournament. The city-parish and Visit Baton Rouge contributed $1.1 million, while the state put in $40,000 and businesses and trade groups put in $400,000.
Moore said half of the construction crew used to build the infrastructure were local and the other half were a team that works for the bowling congress.
All the materials for the infrastructure were purchased locally by the bowling congress, Moore said.
Moore said the cost to build the infrastructure exceeded the hosting fee it collected.
Although volunteers pulled nails and screws from some of the lumber at the River Center from the demolition over the past week, the rest of the work will be completed by volunteers at the ReStore, Moore said.
Moore said the USBC has been donating demolished wood from each city it visits for tournaments for years.
“It goes way back. It’s one way we try to operate green,” Moore said.
USBC officials arrived in Baton Rouge in December to start building the infrastructure needed for the tournament in the River Center.
The first ball was rolled on Feb. 11; the tournament ended July 10, Moore said.
While the walls and offices are torn down for donation, the bowling lanes installed in the River Center are salvaged and shipped to the next city for the next tournament, Moore said. Next year, the lanes will be used in Reno for a women’s championship.
“The lanes come apart, each lane panel and gutter,” Moore said.
After the lanes are used for three years in USBC tournaments, they are sold to different bowling facilities throughout the country, Moore said.
The ReStore, which opened in Baton Rouge in 2003, is a retail outlet where used and surplus building materials are sold at a fraction of normal prices. The money made at the store helps fund construction of Habitat houses in the community.
For more information about Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge and the ReStore, visit, http://www.habitatBR.org